Picture the scene. Jesus and the disciples had been out all day. Teaching, preaching, healing and ministering to people before the Sadducees, a religious group that taught that there was no resurrection of the dead tried to entrap Jesus with a question about marriage and the resurrection. After Jesus answered their question in such a way that left the crowd “dazed and stunned” (Matthew 22:33), the Pharisees decided they would make their attempt at stumping the Son of God.
In an attempt to get Jesus to say something blasphemous, one of the religious scholars of the day stood up and asked a question to test Him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” the man asked (Matthew 22:35-36). This was the epitome of a loaded question. If Jesus declared that any one of the 600-plus Old Testament commandments were more important than the others, the Pharisees would have Him exactly where they wanted Him. They would be able to take His answer, twist His words and paint Him out to be a heretic to the masses. Blasphemy and any sideways comments about God’s law to Moses were punishable by death in these days. The trap was set. How would Jesus respond?
Matthew 22:37-40 (TPT)
Jesus answered him, “‘Love the Lord your God with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being, and with every thought that is within you.’ This is the greatest and supreme commandment. And the second is like it in importance: ‘You must love your friend in the same way you love yourself!’ Contained within these commandments to love you will find all the meaning of the Law and the Prophets.
When posed with a seemingly impossible question to answer, Jesus pointed the man asking the question directly to the heart of God. 1 John 4:8 declares that “God is love.” Jesus knew the intent of the question. This wasn’t the first time or the last time that religious leaders of the day had tried to entrap Jesus with a question they wanted Him to answer. They continued to try and fail at this scheme because they failed to understand the fact that the Man they were asking was God in the Flesh. It’s hard to stump Jesus with a question about the Bible.
Jesus actually gave the man who asked the question two answers. The most important commandment was the commandment to love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. Then Jesus tagged on a second one that He said was “like it” in importance. The commandment to love others. What does that look like? What does loving God with every part of our very being look like? Furthermore, what does it look like to love the people around us as much as we love ourselves? Being able to answer those questions is an important part of understanding the heart of God.
How Are We Supposed to Love God?
How to we love God with every passion of our heart, with all the energy of our being and with every thought that is within us? After all, Jesus said that was the most important commandment.
Loving God with every passion of our heart is another way of saying that our relationship with Him is the most important part of our lives. That doesn’t mean that we spend every minute of every day ignoring those around us and shirking our responsibilities to focus on prayer and Bible study. Instead, it means that we let our love for God control every other aspect of our lives. When we love God with all of our heart, it changes the way that we treat others. It changes the way that we feel about our responsibilities and shapes every aspect of who we are.
Loving God with every energy of our being means that we prioritize things that advance the kingdom of God over trivial matters. Again, that’s not to say that we don’t have outside interests. Instead, loving God with every energy of our being means that we apply Godly principles to everything that we do. When we’re at work, we are providing a Godly example to those around us. If we’re at school, we’re doing the same thing. When we are at home, we’re making sure that our family sees the love of Christ inside of us.
Finally, how do we love God with every thought that is within us? It means that we are saturating our minds with the things of God. The most obvious way to do this is to ensure that we do spend time every day taking in the Word of God. Thanks to technological advances, that can take on any number of looks. If you don’t have time in the morning to sit down and read, consider listening to an audio version of the Bible on your commute to work. Even when you’re not reading, try to spend some time meditating on the Word of God or a sermon from your church. The Bible encourages us to control our mind (2 Corinthians 10:5). Doing that is how we love God with every thought.
How Are We Supposed to Love Others?
Jesus took special care to make sure that the people listening understood that the way we love other people is just as important as the way that we love God. While that may sound relatively simple on the surface, that also means that we’re called to love the people around us who may be a little less than loveable. However, that does nothing to change the way that we’re supposed to love them.
Jesus said that we’re supposed to love the people around us in the same way that we love ourselves. Let’s be honest, we all want the best for ourselves. That’s why we go to school, apply for jobs, make money and try our best to get ahead. We want good for ourselves. In this verse, Jesus said that we’re supposed to want the same thing for the people around us.
That also means that we’re called to help others. Simply telling someone that they can call you if they need anything isn’t enough. God expects us to put action behind those words. Love isn’t really love until it’s love in action. The type of love that God commands us to show to people around us requires us to do something. As the body of Christ, we are called to be an active display of the love that we say we have for God and others. That’s what Jesus was saying when He told us to love others like we love ourselves.
What does that look like for you? Ultimately, it depends on what sort of opportunities you have. If there are opportunities for you to volunteer in your local church, at a soup kitchen or in some other place where people are meeting the practical needs of those around them, consider that as an opportunity to love others. If that’s not an option for you, show the same grace and mercy that you’ve received from God to the people in your own home. There are countless opportunities to love people every day. It’s up to us to not only look for those opportunities but to take advantage of them.
So, what does love look like? It means that we move ourselves further down our list of importance and focus more on God and others. It means that when we’re figuring out what we should do in a situation, we look for the option that will allow God to receive the most glory. It also means that we will care as much about the happiness of the people around us as we do our own. Loving the way that Jesus said to certainly isn’t easy, but it allows us to experience the fullness of what God has for His people.
A Closing Prayer
God, help me to love You more than I ever have before. While I’ve said that I love you, I want the love that I have for you to change the way that I think, feel and act. Lord, I also need You to help me love others. Open my eyes to opportunities to show love to people around me through my actions. Once I see those opportunities, give me the courage to take advantage of them. Help me to love you and love others more than I ever have. In Christ’s name, Amen.