Love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength | Saturday, April 01, 2006
LOVE THE LORD WITH ALL OF YOUR HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH
In the Old Testament, our Lord required only one thing from the people of Israel and that is they are to love the Lord with all of their heart and mind and soul and strength. That is before He even gave Moses the 10 commandments and it seemed to me that if anyone can fulfil this requirement from the Lord, he/she has already fulfilled the 10 commandments but the sad thing is that nobody can do that; not the Israelites in the past nor us in the present. We can't even love our brothers or others and we keep feeling irritation, annoyance and anger, hurt and other emotions even at the persons that we have loved most dearly and preciously in our hearts. It is written in 1 John that if we don't even love our brothers whom we have seen on earth, how can we love God whom we have not even seen? (paraphrase mine). God called us a liar and we lied not only to God but we lied to ourselves that we loved God very dearly to the extent that we could even give up our lives for Him.
Look at Peter on the night that Jesus was to be crucified. Jesus told Peter that every one of His disciples is going to be scattered, each to his own house and Peter declared boldly that He was going to die together with Him and that even if everyone would reject Jesus, he, Peter would not and would be with Him. However, Jesus knew better and He told Peter gently (I believe) that Peter, in this night, will deny Jesus not one time but three times before the rooster crowed and we all knew who was right in the end. I personally believed that Peter was sincere in his commitment to the Lord just like the rest of us when we declared our love for the person we loved and yet in the end, ended in tears and sorrow, possibly even divorce. However, what amazed me was that Jesus, after resurrection, asked Peter one question three times whether Peter loved Him. Peter answered Jesus the last time and that was when my heart broke. Peter told Jesus, "Lord, You know all things. You know that I loved You." Jesus turned to him and said, "Feed my sheep." When Peter made this declaration of love to Jesus, Jesus did not condemn him nor did He refer to Peter's denial but He believed that Peter loved Him and tasked him to take care of the little ones.
To me that is love indeed. We can't love God in the way He required: with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength but I believe that one day we are able to do so, not of our own ability but enabled by His. The way He restored Peter, the way He did not question Peter's love for Him are examples for us to follow. Love is not just a tingly-feeling, the way your eyes light up when you see the one you love come into the room but it's more than that. It's a commitment to the other person just as God is committed to us and that He chooses the best for us. In the Old Testament, even when the Israelites were adulterous and worshipped other gods, God still loved them and that He longed for them to return to His side. In the same way, God has not changed and He longed for us to return to Him. Just as the marriage vows that said, "For richer or poorer, for health and in sicknesses, till death do us part." That is not requirement but commitment but sad to say, the people who made these vows did not remember it nor do they honor it and no wonder, their marriages end in divorce because they are not committed to it.
I do believe that they are committed to each other before their marriage and also on their wedding day but it does not stop there. It goes on till the day you died and that is a life-long commitment. Call me naive or idiot but I sincerely believe that is possible. If you have accepted the person to be your husband or wife, work with them to make your marriage work by the grace of God. I don't believe that anyone can love his/her spouse with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength but I do believe that you can love your wife to the extent that you are willingly give up your life for hers, do the things that pleases your wife, listening to her, loving her and many others more. To me, that is love most explicitly expressed, doing the little things and then moving on to greater things. Teach me to love Lord for You are indeed the Source of Love. Amen.
Created at 9:50 AM
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Name: Joseph Chia
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