Matthew 22:34 - 40 "But when the Pharisees heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence,
they gathered themselves together. And one of them, a lawyer,asked Him a question,
testing Him, 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?'
And He said to him, '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 foremost commandment.
The second is like it,You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets.'" (IISB)
At the very beginning of this message, I would like to ask everyone this question:
" How many will raise your hands and say, 'Thank God, I have been born again…
I have been saved from my sin… I am a child of God."
If you can say that, please raise your hand in gratitude and praise.
Almost everyone in this service has raised their hands and said,
" I am a Christian -- thank God!"
That is wonderful!
God bless every one of you.
Now, I am going to ask you another question, but I don't want you to raise your hand.
I would ask you to answer in your heart to God the question that I'm going to ask.
For we know that God knows our very thoughts and motives.
The question is, " Do you love the Lord God with all your heart… and do you love
your neighbor as…
Jesus said, " If you love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)
It is so easy to say, "I love you, Father." "I love you, dear God!"
Have you said that before?
It is easy to say, but not easy to keep.
I like to tell Him how much I love Him: but if I just said I loved Him without keeping
His commandments, then I would be lying.
And so are you, if you say, I love you, Lord, yet don't keep His commandments.
Now, if we don't love God like that, and if, we love ourselves, our pleasures, our money,
our possessions, or anyone or anything more than we love God, then we have broken
the greatest and the first commandment.
And if that is the greatest commandment which Jesus said it was,
then not keeping it could be called the greatest sin.
When we depend on our own understanding, instead of trusting in the Lord,
then it proves that we don't love God as we should.
That is sinful!
When we walk in the flesh rather than walking in the Spirit, then we don't love God
as we should.
That is sinful!
When the Word of God is not in our hearts, then we don't love God as we should.
That is sinful!
When we have strife and bitterness in our hearts, then we don't love God as we should.
That is sinful!
When prayer is not a priority in our lives, then we don't love God as we should.
That is sinful!
Matthew 14:14–"And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved
with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick."
When the passion of God is not our passion,
it proves we don't love God as we should. (Matthew 9:36-39)
Matthew 14:14–"And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved
with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick."
God's Word teaches us in James 4:17: "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good,
and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
So, if we break one law, then we are guilty of all.
If we do not love God with all our being, then we have sinned, and that is terrible.
What does it mean to love God?
This is an extremely important question.
It is important because Jesus said that the greatest commandment is for us to
" Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
(Matthew 22:37)
To love God with all my heart and soul and mind clearly means to love Him with all my being,
with everything I have.
So, if we are to love God totally and completely, then we must know what it means to love God.
To love God with all our being begins by being loved by God. We will never love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength until we
allow His love to cover and transform each of those areas of our life.
Jesus commands us to love God.
That is so difficult for us.
We want to do something for God.
We want a mountain-sized challenge that we can accomplish for God.
Others want to do something because they are so filled with guilt that they feel like
they must sell all their earthly possessions and feed all the poor people in the world
before God will love them.
But all that is based on us doing something for God.
True trust is accepting what God did for us in Jesus as enough.
All we need to do is rest in that reality.
No matter who you are, no matter where you have been, and no matter what you've done,
God loves you.
God loves you with no strings attached and no boundaries.
He has only one requirement of you —that you love Him with all your being.
God requires that you love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).
God gave all of Himself to you in Jesus.
Jesus loved you with His whole being, and He laid down His life for you on the cross.
God wants you to love Him in the same way.
You are made up of a heart (the place of your passions),
a soul (your eternal being and the seat of your emotions),
a mind (the place of your thoughts and reasoning), and body (the place of your physical strength).
God wants us to love Him with our whole being.
By doing so, we return God's love toward us in Jesus Christ.
It is clear that we are to love God with everything we are — our hearts, souls, mind, and strength. So, how do we do that?
What is it that we are really being told to do when Jesus says, "You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength."?
Loving God is more than just some sort of mushy, sentimental feeling.
There are times when we love God's good gifts more than we love God who gives them.
There are times we take our eyes off of God.
A loving wife or husband can lead us away from having an all-encompassing love for God
when we love that husband or wife more than we love Him.
Other temptations cause us not to love God as we are commanded.
These temptations can be for good things that we want in the wrong way.
Sexual expression outside of marriage, more money or possessions than what God has
granted us can cause us to love other things more than we love God.
Too often we respond in wrong ways to the good things in this world:
We either have them, and let our enjoyment and love for them become greater than our love for God;
or we don't have them, and spend our lives coveting them, thus failing to love God above all else.
A lack of love for God may resultjust because we never even think of Him.
We are so busy!
We get up, got to work, comet home, have dinner, watch our regular TV programs, exercise,
call our parents, help the kids with the homework, take care of the dog.
And, suddenly, it's bedtime.
The day's over, and we had no time with God today.
So we say, "Well, tomorrow I'll do that."
But then, tomorrow gets away from us, and again, it is "Tomorrow,I'll do that!"
So, how can we truly love God? Many Christians are spiritually illiterate of God and of God's ways, and of God's will.
How can we love anyone if we don't understand them?
First, we need to spend some time every day with God's Word. God's Word is the revelation of Who God is.
God's Word is the revelation of the only way to know Him, and the only way
to be acceptable to Him.
God's Word shows us the way to true life, and give us the right perspective on all the rest of life.
So, if we are going to love God as He has commanded, we must have a hunger and thirst
for God's Word.
The Bible tells us that we must know His Word if we are to love Him, and when we love
God as Jesus commands us, then, we are enabled to love our fellow man.
To love God as Jesus commanded will mean that we trust Him completely. If we truly love God, we will trust Him.
We will know that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
We will know that we can find rest only in Him.
We will know that we have abundant life in Him.
We will experience the peace and inexpressible joy in Him.
We will express our love for God by worshipping Him. When we truly love someone, we focus our attention on our loved one
to the exclusion of others, in fact, to the exclusion of all others most of the time.
It's almost like we have blinders on, and we are not easily distracted from the one we love.
That's what we doing here when we come to worship God.
When we worship God, we are deliberately focusing the attention of our heart and mind
and soul on God, on Who He is, and all that He has done for us in His Son, Jesus,
in coming to us, loving us, saving us for eternity and providing for us and guiding us.
Psalm 26:8 says, "I love the house where you live, O Lord, the place where your glory dwells."
Another way we love God is by communicating with Him in prayer.
When we have a deep and meaningful communication with our wives and/or husbands,
our relationship grows.
It matures, it becomes richer.
If communication stops or becomes superficial, then over time our relationship can start to deteriorate.
The same is true with God.
On the days I have deep, significant communication with Him, I'm closer to Him,
our relationship grows.
On the days when that doesn't happen…
When we love God as Jesus commanded, we are totally committed to Him. We live in a world that is characterized by the lack of commitment.
The world says, "Be independent, keep your options open, don't commit to anyone,
or anything unless you have to."
Nothing worthwhile or significant happens in life without commitment.
Someone has said that committed people are known by their commitments,
and weak people are known by their circumstances.
II Chronicles 16:9 says, "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen
those whose hearts are fully committed to Him."
A clear demonstration of your love for God is to publicly confess Jesus Christ as
your personal Savior and Lord, and to become a member of His church and become actively involved
in the life of His church.
Finally, you express your love for God by giving to Him.
We read in I John 4 that giving is the essence of love.
In love, God gave His Son to you, for you
When you love someone, you give to them.
2 Corinthians 8:7-8 "Just as you excel in faith, in speech, in knowledge and in complete
earnestness... see that you also excel in the grace of giving.
I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love." (NIV)
God doesn't need our money, but we need to give.
There are those who are fearful and reluctant givers who say: "I can't afford to give.
I need every penny that I have."
Then, there are cheerful givers who say, "I would have nothing without God,
and I want to give back to Him."
How often do you prove your love for God by giving to Him your tithes and offerings?
How many here have kept this commandment?
I know, I have not; I must plead guilty before God; I must cast my self before him,
and acknowledge my transgression.
For there is the the commandment—"Thou shalt love God with all thy heart"
— that is, thou shalt love him supremely.
Not the kind of love that some people give to their family and friends; when they say,
"Be ye warmed and filled," and nothing more.
No!
Our love must be totally focused on God because everything we have God has given us.
God deserves our greatest love.
Now, I am asking you to bow your heads, and from your heart of gratitude and love
just tell God that you love Him -- that you really love Him.
And ask Him to forgive you for not loving Him with all your heart, and mind and soul.
I am going to be praying quietly in my heart that same prayer, and after a while
we will all say, "Amen," and "Thank you, dear God!"
Now to those who are not Christians, God loves you, and Jesus died for you so
that you could become a child of God's, and Have all your sins forgiven, and have
eternal life and live forever in heaven after this life is over.
We urge you to come and receive the greatest gift ever given to man
which is the gift of salvation.
