"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Matt 22:37
We tend to use the word "love" in a lot of different ways and we apply it to a lot of different things. C. S. Lewis wrote that there are four different types of love: storge (a fondness due to familiarity, especially for family), phillia (that which is associated with strong friendships), eros (romantic emotions) and agape (unconditional, also known as the greatest love). There may not even be a word for the type of love we assign to objects, foods, songs, books, movies, places and instances ("I love it when a plan comes together").
There is no need to be coy about which of these applies to God's love for us or which of these the savior uses in this command. 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. He is the very embodiment, the very concept and that love is absolutely unconditional.
Beloved it is not a matter of whether we should love God. It is a matter of how. We should be consumed with it. It should be our essence. It should permeate every fiber of our being, every hope, every dream and every thought. We should pursue it mentally, emotionally and energetically. Our love for Him should never be relegated to a paper thin surface acknowledgement. It should resonate deep in our souls and govern everything we say, think and do. It should exceed the greatest love we have ever had for a human, be it parent, spouse, child or friend, in ways that stretch the bounds of imagination. As God is love, we should be love for Him.
God loved us so much that even as unrepentant sinners, He gave the life of His Only Begotten that we might have life we forfeited long ago. How do you live your love for Him?
Rejoicing in the Lord,
Lee
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