LOVE

WHY LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR HEART AND WITH ALL OUR MIND AND WITH ALL OUR SOUL AND WITH ALL OUR STRENGTH?

The teacher of the Law in Mark 12:28 asked the question. Y’shua replied, “When a man loses a purse, does he turn only his eye to look for it? Or only his hand to feel for it? Or only his tongue to ask for it? Certainly not! He turns his whole body and employs all his powers to find it. Is this not true? Now, is not your Father in heaven more valuable than your purse?” (Gospel of Barnabas, chapter 100)

WHY DOES GOD COMMAND US TO LOVE HIM? IS HE SELFISH?

God is not selfish. Our existence is one proof of this. He created us to share with us what He has.

God has no need to be selfish. The whole creation belongs to Him; everything in it is His (Job 41:11, Psalm 24:1, Leviticus 25:23, Psalm 50:10, Haggai 2:8). God is called God because He is perfect and complete. Nothing can be added to Him and nothing taken away (Sirach 42:21).

²⁵ He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. ACTS 17

God commanding us to love Him is for our own good. You see, our journey through life is always a matter of choice between the kingdom of heaven and the evil empire. It is like standing at the edge of a cliff—with Lucifer urging us to jump and God urging us not to. Lucifer is urging us to jump because it will kill us. God is urging us not to jump so we may live. 

The devil does not have our best interest in mind (John 10:10). But God is the opposite. He wants us to keep busy living, not dying.

⁶ I am the way, the truth and the life. JOHN 14 

IF GOD CANNOT BE SERVED BY HUMAN HANDS, HOW IS LOVE OF GOD PUT INTO ACTION?

Love of God = Love of neighbor.

⁸ If you really keep the royal law found in the Scripture, which is Love your neighbor as you love yourself, you are doing right. JAMES 2 

²⁰ For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ [God] has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 JOHN 4

⁴⁰ … I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me. ⁴⁵ I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me. MATTHEW 25

The term neighbor encompasses our family members, friends and relatives, churchmates, schoolmates, workmates, townmates and countrymen—even the strangers that come into our sphere and the peoples that live in foreign lands.[1]

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is the second greatest commandment. Y’shua said the second is like the first (Matthew 22:39). For whoever loves God must also love his neighbor and whoever loves his neighbor must also love God. No one can love God and put his neighbor aside; neither can he love his neighbor and put God aside. The two commandments are corollary, made to be part and parcel of one another. In the sight of God one is not pleasing without the other. To love God is to love your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to love God. Love God and Love your neighbor are clamped together. This explains why the two are listed under one and the same chapter in this book.

The question is, does it follow that our neighbor must be loved as well with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength? The answer is Yes. That precisely is how Love God is translated into action. “And since a neighbor is every person, regardless of race, gender or age, we get to love everyone!” said Paul J. Meyer.[2]

IF AN OCCASION ARISES WHEREIN WE MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN THE TWO, WHO MUST WE CHOOSE?

Choose love of God over love of neighbor. Prioritize the Creator over the creation.

Why was Patriarch Abraham called righteous? He was called righteous because when he chose God over his beloved son Isaac. Abraham always prioritized God.  

We love our neighbor only because we love God. Make no mistake about it. Love your neighbor is but an offshoot (meaning only a subsidiary or an extension) of Love God. God should be our first and foremost priority, and Love God our focus.  

²³ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. COLOSSIANS 3

WHY MUST WE LOVE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

We love because God created us to love and be loved.

Love is the divine nature. When God thinks, He thinks of propagating and perpetuating love. When God acts, He acts to propagate and perpetuate love. When God speaks, He speaks to propagate and perpetuate love.

1 John 4:16 says God is love. It doesn’t say God has love. He is love! Love is the essence of God’s character. “Long before He laid down earth’s foundation, He had us in His mind, had settled on us as the focus of His love” (Ephesians 1:4a msg). God made us so He could love us. This is a truth to build our lives on. (Purpose-Driven Life, p. 24)

Because we were created in the image and likeness of the First Tree, love too is our nature. We are potential perfections meant to grow into actual perfections—trees that constantly produce fruits of love.

¹⁸ What is the kingdom of heaven like? What shall I compare it to? ¹⁹ It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. LUKE 13

³¹ It is the smallest seed you can plant in the ground. ³² Yet it grows and becomes [a tree] the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch on its shade. MARK 4

⁴⁸ You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. MATTHEW 5

In us is love that “yearns to be expressed and shared; it needs an outlet.”[3] It is most natural for us to love and most unnatural for us not to. Act contrary to our nature—immobilize or isolate it—and we feel heavy, down and lonely; our life becomes empty and meaningless. However, let our nature fly, let it find an outlet, and we feel light… excited… inspired… fulfilled… easy to smile and laugh… 

¹² Love each other as I have loved you. JOHN 15

God created us to build love-relationships, to nurture and perpetuate fulfilling relationships. The mandate was given to our first parents and it extends to us. In this context John 15:12 becomes our accountability—an obligation—to our Creator.

⁶ God blessed [our first parents] and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number.” GENESIS 1

⁶ Fill all the world with fruit. ISAIAH 27

¹⁷ Wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then… full of good fruit. JAMES 3

Notwithstanding all the above reasons why we must love, gratefulness dictates that we reciprocate God’s love for us in a manner most acceptable to Him: by loving one another. God deserves nothing less.

¹⁹ We love each other because God loved us first. 1 JOHN 4 nlt

¹⁴ Anyone who does not love remains in death. 1 JOHN 3

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[1] Tertullian On Prayer quoted a saying attributed to Y’shua, as follows: “When you have seen your brother, you have seen the Lord.”

[2] Paul J. Meyer, Unlocking Your Legacy (Chicago, USA: Moody Publishers, 2005), p. 31.

[3] Billy Graham, The Journey: How to Live by Faith in an Uncertain World (Nashville, Tennessee, USA: W Publishing Group, 2006), p. 27.