Have you ever wondered what God requires of you to walk the Christian walk? Or have you ever tried to figure out what rules and laws you had to follow to be good enough? I used to think about questions like these a lot, and I want to share with you the answers that I’ve found.
When I was younger, my life frequently revolved around following the rules. Whether it was in school, in sports, or at home, I often did everything I could to steer clear of punishment and look “perfect” in the eyes of others. This habit of mine was no different when it came to Christianity. Whenever I attended things like Sunday school or youth group, all I ever took away were the “dos” and “don’ts” of religion. I wanted to look like the best Christian I could.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that if I checked enough “dos” off the list of life, I would be secure. Things like “thou shalt not steal,” or “thou shalt not lie,” became the anthem of my Christian life. But I soon realized that this system never satisfied me. I was still lost and still confused, and still felt scared because I wasn’t getting everything right. And maybe you relate to that feeling.
What was missing, though?
After all my striving, and after I truly learned that I could never do enough good things to secure my life, I started looking for new answers. It was from Christian friends pointing me to truths in the Bible where I found exactly what I had been missing.
In Matthew 22: 34-40, a religious leader asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. In this passage, the leader was trying to trick Jesus into saying something untruthful. Well, Jesus had a brilliant response (as always). He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” Well that’s different, huh? Love God, with all your heart? If you are in a similar spot as I used to be, this idea of love being the greatest commandment might seem foreign to you. What about all the “thou shalt not’s?” Well, if you’re thinking this way then you’ve most likely only read the law as a list of rules. If you have, then you’ve been missing the most important point!
Get this, the amazing answer Jesus had for the religious leader wasn’t a new idea. It was quoted from Deuteronomy, the law itself!
Directly after God gave the Israelites the ten commandments, He declared the one commandment that all the others stem from. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,” (Deuteronomy 6:5). That’s exactly what I had been missing my entire life. That’s why I felt so empty even when I tried my hardest to follow all the rules. I didn’t have love. God’s will for us has never been to work our way to perfection, instead it has always been to love Him.
After Jesus tells us the first and greatest commandment, He also says that the second is like it. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” (Matthew 22:39). After you begin to love God, you will also come to love the people that He has created. These two commandments are so extremely important that Jesus tells us, “On these two commandments depend all the laws and the Prophets,” (Matthew 22:40). So, if we love God, we will inherently start to love others. And if we are doing both those things, we will not only stick to the other commandments, we will desire to follow them.
I do want to point out here that following God’s commands and doing good works for Him are extremely important. In fact, Jesus says in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” and again in verses 23-24, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word…Whoever does not love me does not keep my word.” So clearly the things we do matter.
But, we must understand that the works themselves are not what bring us security, purpose, or status.
God isn’t telling us that following His commandments count as loving Him. He is saying to love Him first, and then the things you do will be an outpouring of your love.
1 Corinthians 13:3 says it like this, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” If our works aren’t first coming from a place of genuine love for God, then not only will they not amount to anything, but we will be missing out on a beautiful aspect of life that God offers us. You don’t have to strive, you don’t have to stress, instead you can rest in God’s love and receive the joy that comes with loving Him back.
Before closing this, I want to give you some encouragement. Loving God with all your heart in every area of life might sound a little daunting right now, but it really isn’t!
In reality, we were made for this love.
1 John 4 gives us some beautiful wisdom when it comes to loving God. In 1 John 4:18, John says that there is no fear of punishment in perfect love (God’s love). That means when we are accepting the love of our God, and loving Him back, we do not need to be afraid when we realize we aren’t perfect. Though God never wants us to sin, He gives us His mercy and grace in our inevitable shortcomings, and loves us through them. So if we are truly loving God, we need have no reason to fear! John also says in 1 John 4:19, “We love because He first loved us.” This statement gives us such freedom! We aren’t called to love a demeaning, haughty, or indifferent being; we get to love the God of the universe who loves you more than you could ever imagine!
The greatest commandment God gives us then, as we’ve seen, is quite simple. Maybe not always easy, but simple. It is not to meet every mark of the law, or to make ourselves look perfect. It is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Every single commandment can be boiled down to the first statement, and then extended into the second. The good things we do in this world, our hard work and good deeds and keeping of commandments, will always be extremely important. They are, after all, the proof of our faith in God! But we must always remember that God first calls us to love Him. That is the greatest command of all.
The Creator of this universe, the God of all, loves you so much. I hope this all has encouraged you to accept that love, and to realize that you get to love Him with all of your heart as well!
Abby
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