Embracing the Greatest Commandment: Love God Fully

Now the question is not a question of temporal chronology. Jesus is not being asked, “What was the first commandment that God ever gave?” That’s not the question. When he says, “What is the first commandment?” it’s not the question of chronology, but the question of priority. He’s asking, “What is the single most important commandment that God has ever given to this world? What commandment sums up the whole duty of human beings before their Creator?” [00:04:00]

And what is in view here is not simply a question about what the sum and substance is of obligations of members of the household of Israel or then later of the Christian community, but rather of the entire world. What is the chief duty of every human being created in the image of God? [00:04:35]

When the Shema was uttered and the call was given for affection to God, it is announced that the object of the affection that is to come from the heart and the soul and the strength is not to some impersonal cosmic force, some unnamed, unknown higher power. It starts with an assertion about the identity of God. “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one!” The Lord, Yahweh, the Lord who has a name, the Lord who has a personal history with you, who’s brought you out of the land of Egypt. [00:08:42]

And we love Him not because He’s intelligent. And we love Him not because He’s strong, or because He’s polite, courteous, or kind. Beloved, we’re not to love God simply for all of the wonderful gifts and benefits that we receive from His hand, but we’re to love Him for who He is in Himself. We don’t really progress in the Christian life until we understand that, that to love God is to love Him because He is lovely. He is wonderful. And He is worthy of the creature’s unqualified affection. [00:13:52]

So in the Shema, Israel is commanded to love God, not simply with all of the heart, but the idea here is that the love is to come from the heart. It’s not just a superficial affection, not just a casual or cavalier endearment, but an affection that comes from the very root of our being, where this affection is not surpassed by any other affection that we ever experience in this world. [00:14:44]

The affection that we have for God is not to be a weak, impotent thing, but that we call upon all of the strength that we can muster up in our persons to magnify that affection for Him. But you notice something strange here about how Jesus quotes the Shema? In the Shema of the Old Testament there are three dimensions about our love for God. We’re to love Him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength. [00:16:17]

Jesus adds to this to remove all ambiguity that not only are we to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, but with all of our mind, the fullness of our understanding. You know, sometimes I really get impatient when I hear people say, “I don’t want to study. I just want to have a simple faith.” God did not give all of this to His people to be treated as a children’s story. [00:17:16]

He calls us to apply the fullest ability of the faculty of our minds in our attempt to understand the riches and the depths of what He has given to us in His Word. I live in terror on that part of the great commandment because I am aware, not fully aware by any means, but to some degree aware of how little I know about this book, how much of the content I don’t know, I’ve never really carefully, closely studied. [00:18:10]

Consider Jesus for a moment, and ask the question, Did He love His Father with all of His heart? Was there any portion of the heart of Christ that was not completely in love with the Father? Did Jesus hold anything back from His soul when His meat and His drink was to do the will of the Father? Was there anything that the Father revealed that Jesus ignored as being not worthy of His attention? [00:22:50]

The Lord Jesus kept the great commandment perfectly. Every second of His life He loved the Father with all of His heart, with all of His soul, all of His mind, and all of His strength. And had He not done that, He would have not fulfilled the law of God and would not have been worthy to save Himself, let alone save us. [00:23:54]

Now again, let me go back for just a second to chapter 6 of Deuteronomy, that after the commandment was given in verse 6 of chapter 6, we read these words, “And these words which I command you shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” [00:25:32]

And just like the Shema, what Jesus is saying is, “Don’t ever forget the cross. When you come together, come to my Table. Look at My body, look at My blood. Show it forth until I come.” [00:27:36]