When Jesus was asked “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And 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.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:28b-31).

Seems simple – love God with all my heart, mind and soul and then love my neighbors as myself.  So how are we doing with the “Great Commandment”?

When people think of us as Christians do they think we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and that we love our neighbors as ourselves  — I would say probably no, at least not all of the time.

Could we be suffering a “love gap” that is the distance between how we are loving and how God created us to love?

Maybe we are failing to manage the time (calendar) God has entrusted to us in the manner in which God created? For me to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength and to love my neighbor as myself it takes less time wasted and more time with God, reading His Bible, praying to Him and being in a listening posture. I still struggle with all of this because of the pull of the world is constantly telling me I have to do this and that and be busy, busy. Why all this busyness? Perhaps because most everyone else I know is doing it and busyness seems like the natural thing to do.

But I fear that we are quenching the Spirit when we are too busy with the things of this world and not focusing on things above and instead focusing on things below.  My focus too often is on what is right in front of me instead of heavenly things.

I need to remember that God is awesome and that He knows best and that is why I need to spend as much time possible with Him and Jesus.

I need to be reminded that I should not feel obligated to do my quiet time but instead be super excited to know our God more, to fall deeper in love with Him so He can be my everything including my most, by far, important relationship. I also must be reminded that when I do not live up to these goals, I should not feel shame or guilt but know that God loves me greatly and for Him there is no love gap.

What will we give up today, to close this love gap?

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