Jesus was asked, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" (Matt 22:36) You remember His answer. The great command is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matt 22:37). The second was similar. "A second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:39). Jesus said and others repeat that this singular command -- love -- is the basis of every command (Matt 24:40). "Love," Paul wrote, "is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:10). So far, so good.
But have you ever thought about how crazy that is? Look, which one of us, if we are honest, are actually capable of loving God "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind"? I mean, "all"? That's huge! And then we have what, on the surface, seems really good, but ends up nearly impossible -- "Love your neighbor as yourself." Really? The dictionary defines love as "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person," "a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection," or "sexual passion or desire." Is it even remotely reasonable that we would be expected to feel that way toward every single neighbor there is, especially considering what Jesus defined as "neighbor" (Luke 10:25-37)? How can we possibly drum up that much "affection" ... for everyone? I mean, it can be difficult to produce that for those with whom we're closest.
It is, of course, a mistaken view we're looking at here. The biblical command is not a requirement for us to control our emotions. The command is to love, and not in the way the world does. We know, for instance, that love is from God (1 John 4:8). We don't produce it. We don't drum it up. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). To understand that the command is to feel a certain way misses the biblical concept of love entirely (1 Cor 13:4-8). Love, the urgent aim for the very best for another, is a gift from God to us to be applied to others. While it often includes warm feelings, it doesn't always. And while we can exercise it without warm feelings, it will often produce them in us when we do exercise it.
When we apply the world's current definition of "love" to God's command to love, we are making God out to be crazy. "What ... me feel warmly toward them? I hardly even know them. In fact, a lot of them aren't very ... lovable." That's not the command. We are commanded to, with all our heart, soul, and mind, seek for God's best and, as we do for ourselves, seek for the best for those around us. How you feel about it at the moment is irrelevant. That you do it is critical. In the end, then, it is not a crazy command. It just looks that way when we fail to think God's way. Besides, if we love because He first loved us and if love is from God, then, looking from His perspective, it's just not that hard, is it? Seek God's best and the best for others? How hard can that be?
(And, oh, by the way, when we understand that God "loves us" not as in "feels warmly toward us", but as in "intends the very best for us", it makes things a lot different. Because sometimes He doesn't necessarily feel very affectionate toward us ... but He always loves us.)
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