Matthew 22:37-38: 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 first commandment.
How do you love God in your life? I am curious to know.
To break down this question, I would ask the following:
1. How do you love God, when we cannot love Him like other people because God cannot be seen, and because God has nothing that requires our help?
2. Do you love God by loving other people as yourself? If so, do you think that by doing so, you fulfil the commandment to love God?
3. What helps you to love God to a greater extent?
I have my answers, but I want to hear from you all.
I look forward to seeing some constructive answers, but not focusing on theological debates.
Edit: I have given my own answer in the following post. I apologise to those who think I should give my answer before asking. You are right to think so.
Hello Tharseo,
I think it is easier to understand how to love Jesus, once we understand Jesus' teaching on how to hate Jesus. Jesus teaches us that to love Him and the Father means to obey God's Commandments. In Old Testament and New Testament, God's Great Commandments, to love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself, are given to sum up God's Ten Commandments, laws and precepts. Of the four times scriptures present Jesus with the Question, 'What must I do to share in everlasting life?', three times Jesus tells us to Obey God's Commandments, two times Jesus tells us to love God. Obeying God and loving God are one in the same.
John 15:22
"If I had not come to them and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; now, however, their sin cannot be excused. To hate me is to hate my Father. Had I not performed such works among them as no one has ever done before, they would not be guilty of sin; but as it is, they have seen, and they go on hating me and my Father."
1 John 5:3
For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome,
John 14:15
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
If there is a way to bring love for God into existence without free will, then why did our loving God allow free will? Murder, the holocaust, abortion, all atrocities, death and damnation all flow out from man's free will. God initiated man's free will and God can end man's free will at any time. If there is a way to love God without putting man in danger of damnation, why did our loving God put man in danger of damnation by allowing him free will?
God cannot force love for God into existence through His Immense Power. Love, by its very nature, must be freely given from one being to another. Love for God emanates through the power of free willed human choices to obey God. The only thing in the universe worth allowing hatred, sin and damnation for, is Love! God allows human free willed hatred in order to make human free willed love for God possible.
Free from the will of God, obedience to the will of God, is love for God. The Ten Commandments are God's instructions on how love for God is accomplished. The reason God does not force men to act as He commands is so that man can love God through choosing to do as God commands. Free will toward the commandments of God gives us the tremendous opportunity to love God.
Deuteronomy 11:1
Love the LORD, your God, therefore, and always heed his charge: his statutes, decrees and commandments."
Romans 13:10
Love never wrongs the neighbor, hence love is the fulfillment of the law.
John 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him,
"Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.
John 15:9
"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love. You will live in my love if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and live in his love. All this I tell you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you."
1 John 2:5
But whoever keeps his word, truly has the love of God been made perfect in him. The way we can be sure we are in union with him is for the man who claims to abide in him to conduct himself just as he did.
2 John 1:5
But now, my Lady, I would make this request of you (not as if I were writing you some new commandment; rather,
it is a commandment we have had from the start): let us love one another. This love involves our walking according to the commandments, and as you have heard from the beginning, the commandment is the way in which you should walk.
1 John 3:23
His commandment is this: we are to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and are to
love one another as he commanded us.
Deuteronomy 11:22
"For if you are careful to
observe all these commandments I enjoin on you, loving the LORD, your God, and following his ways exactly, and holding fast to him, . . . . "
Luke 10:25
On one occasion a lawyer stood up to pose him this problem:
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit everlasting life?" Jesus answered him:
"What is written in the law? How do you read it?" He replied:
"You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind;
and your neighbor as yourself."
Jesus said,
"You have answered correctly. Do this and you shall live."
Sirach 28:7
Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor;
Deuteronomy 5:6
'I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For
I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishments for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation but bestowing mercy, down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Matthew 19:16
"Teacher, what good must I do to possess everlasting life?" He answered,
"Why do you question me about what is good? There is One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." "Which ones?" he asked. Jesus replied "You shall not kill"; 'You shall not commit adultery'; 'You shall not steal'; 'You shall not bear false witness'; 'Honor your father and mother'; and 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
Concept Quoted from: Jesus, What Must I Do To Share In Everlasting Life?
