When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus quoted not one commandment but two. He then added that these two commandments sum up the Law and the Prophets, what was the Bible in the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, what was the Bible for those who flocked to hear him, for the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who disputed with him.
The first commandment that Jesus quoted was Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “The Lord, the Lord alone, is our God. And you must love the Lord your God with all your mind and all your soul and all your strength.” Jesus went on say that this commandment was the first and great commandment.
Loving God with all our mind and all our soul and all our strength, with every atom of our being, goes beyond assembling together, singing God’s praises (or, in many churches, hearing someone else sing God’s praises), contributing to an offering, listening to a sermon, and receiving communion. It means showing him the reverence and honor that is due him in the way we live our lives.
Loving God with all our mind and all our soul and all our strength, with every atom of our being, means loving Jesus. As Jesus said, those who love the Father love the Son whom he sent. Those who love Jesus do what he taught. His words were not his own. They were the Father’s. They were what he had heard from the Father.
Loving God with all our mind and all our soul and all our strength, with every atom of our being, means loving our fellow Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ. As the apostle John wrote, how can we say that love God whom we have not seen if we do not love our fellow Christians whom we have seen. If we do not love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we do not love God.
Loving God with all our mind and all our soul and all our strength, with every atom of our being, means doing God’s will. We not only pray as Jesus taught us, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven,” and say with Jesus, “Your will, not mine, be done,” but like our Lord we do God’s will. In doing God’s will, we become one of those whom Jesus called his family. We become his mother, his sister, and his brother.
Loving God with all our mind and all our soul and all our strength, with every atom of our being, means loving what God loves in the way that God loves it. We can learn what God love and how God loves it from the story of God’s relationship with the children of Israel, with Jacob’s sons and daughters. God delivered them from slavery in Egypt and settled them in a new land, a land which he had promised them. The children of Israel were a headstrong and rebellious people. Despite their waywardness he did not reject or abandon them. At the same time God did not overlook their waywardness. He allowed them to suffer the consequences of their self-will. He forgave them when they turned back to him and was merciful toward them. God’s love for his chosen people was unwavering. His kindness toward them was without limit. God kept forgiving them repeatedly. God would deliver them from captivity in Babylon, restore Jerusalem, and reestablish Judaea. God enabled them to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
What we learn from this story is that God does not love us due to some outstanding quality in us. God loves us because he chooses to love us. God's love for us is an act of his will on his part.
We also learn that God is not capricious in loving us. His love for us is steadfast. It does not wax and wane like the moon. It does not ebb and flow like the tide.
At the same time, we please God when we obey him. We give joy to God when we do his will. We can also grieve God with our disobedience.
Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates our relationship with God. The younger of two son demands his share of the inheritance from his father. This is the same as wishing that his father was dead since an inheritance is normally shared after the one from whom it is inherited is dead. What is even more surprising is that the father gives it to him! The younger son then goes to a far-off land and spends his share of the inheritance on booze and prostitutes! He does not put it to wise use. He wastes it!
When the money is gone, the younger son falls on hard times. He is forced to tend someone’s pigs. For the Jews pigs were unclean animals and they did not keep them or eat them. In the mind of the Jews herding swine was not a fitting occupation for anyone, much less a Jew. Those who tended pigs became unclean like the swine that they herded. The younger son was so hungry that he wished that he was able to eat the pods that the pigs were eating.
This one detail shows us how sore were the straights into which the younger son had fallen. The pods were those of the fava bean. The mature pods are tough and covered with fuzz. While pigs may be able to eat them, humans are not. Humans can eat the beans that the pods contain provided that, they are boiled, and they do not eat too many of them. The same detail suggests that the younger son was not paid enough to buy sufficient food for himself or that he was paying off a debt which he owed. It also suggests that he may not have abandoned his wastrel habits. When he had money, he was still spending it on booze and prostitutes.
In any event he decides that he would be better off as a slave in his father’s house. He returns home. We are not told whether he experienced any difficulty in returning home. He most likely did.
When the younger son returns home, he finds his father waiting for him. The father is not sitting in his house waiting for the son’s return. He is outside, scanning the horizon for his returning son. When he spies his distant figure, he rushes to welcome him home. I can see him in my mind’s eye, running barefoot, his robes flying, his beard streaming behind him, his neighbors covering their eyes at the sight of such an unseemly spectacle. The father has not stopped loving his wayward son. He has not given up on the younger son. That is the way that God loves us. What we do may grieve him, but he does not give up on us.
What does God love, or put another way, who does God love? God loves the wayward as well as those who do his will. In what way does God love us? God works in us to enable us to will what he wills and when we will what he wills, he enables us to do his will. When we turn from our waywardness, he rejoices. He shows us forgiveness and mercy. He does not hold our waywardness against us.
We love God when love others in the same way. When someone wrongs us, we keep on loving them despite what they said or did. While we may be grieved by their words and actions, we forgive them and do not hold the wrong that we suffered at their hands against them. We are merciful as God himself is merciful.
Loving God with all our mind and all our soul and all our strength, with every atom of our being, means that we give God our full devotion. Our devotion is not divided between God and someone else or something else. As Jesus pointed to his disciples’ attention, we cannot serve two masters. If we love one, we will hate the other. This does not mean that we cannot show devotion to our family, our friends, and our church. It does mean that God should be first in our devotion.
If it sounds hard to love God, remember that God is a loving and compassionate God. God does not leave us to love him solely in our own strength. In his merciful kindness God supplies us with grace, grace that enables us to love him more than we can love him in our own strength alone. If we step out in faith, we will discover that God is already working in us to enable us to love him. God knows our need before we ask him.
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