The Love of Your Life

If someone were to ask you who or what the love of your life is, how would you answer? Would you define such a lofty endearment to a spouse, an endeavor or work, or someone close to you? If you truly searched your heart before offering an answer, how would you genuinely reply? What if the answer is already clearly outlined for all believers in God’s Word?

The First and Greatest Commandment

The first commandment is one we all know mentally, but do we know it at a core heart level? Is it one that we do not merely profess it with our mouths, but believe it in our innermost beings that it is not just the first, but the greatest calling of our lives? In Matthew 22:36-38 Jesus explains,

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 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 foremost commandment.” Matthew 22:36-38

The Greek word for love here is, agapaō, which is the verb form of the noun, agape. Agape love is the highest form of love, it is the same love mentioned in John 15:13 of,

“Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Agape love differs from other types of love (see Blog on the 4 types of Biblical Love https://www.therootedtruth.com/blog/4-types-of-biblical-love), “Agape love involves faithfulness, commitment, and an act of the will. It is distinguished from the other types of love by its lofty moral nature and strong character.” (2). In practicality, agape love is making the choice to commit to and loyally serve a person, place, or thing more than anything else in this life. What Jesus is conveying in Matthew 22:36-28 is that the first commandment is not merely a suggestion, but a call to choice of the heart, soul, and mind. It means loving God in reciprocation.

Our Choice

In His goodness, God has offered us the capacity for Free Will. What this means in application is that we are not creatures that lack the option to decide for ourselves who we will serve, who or what we will love, and the devotion of our affection. Because of Free Will, we have the ability to place our allegiances to God to something or someone else. This is not to say that we solely love God and nothing and no one else; rather, it is to say that because God is first and foremost, we can then love others in correct order. 

Why Loving Him Most Helps Us Love Others Well

God-Authored order bears the fruit of optimum function, meaning when we operate in the way God has laid out in His Word as correct, the result is not merely good, it is great. Consider when God gave Noah the precise orders as to how to build the Ark, so that the outcome was not just a good vessel, but a great one. Because of the intentionality of the Lord in giving instructions as to how to go about the process, Noah, in following God’s orders, found himself with an Ark that would not capsize, that was sustainable through such a cataclysmic event, and was precisely what was needed for survival. (3). When God gives us direction, the consequences are ones for our benefit, not our detriment. Just as He offered Noah the guidance for the Ark, so He gives us the wisdom of where our affections should line up. When we love Him first and most, all other love is then expressed through our first love. Meaning we love others through and by and because of our first love. As C.S. Lewis once said in a letter, “When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” (4). In the same heart and sentiment Deitrich Bonhoeffer in his book, Life Together, shares, “Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake.... Human love makes itself an end in itself. It creates of itself an end, an idol which it worships, to which it must subject everything. It nurses and cultivates an ideal, it loves itself, and nothing else in the world. Spiritual love, however, comes from Jesus Christ, it serves him alone; it knows that it has no immediate access to other persons. Jesus Christ stands between the lover and the others he loves.” (5). Through loving others after the Lord, we love them through the Lord. This challenges their position to become an idol or lord in our lives, and it enables us to love them with a fullness, with a capacity, and with a tenderness that can only come from knowing the pure love of God. When God is first, we can love others best.

The Love of Your Eternity

The Lord is not just merely the greatest love you will ever know or experience in this lifetime, but of all eternity. We must not become so present minded that our focus is solely on what is here on this earth, but rather to know that when we accept Jesus as Savior, we will receive life eternal in Heaven with Him. (John 3:16). Invite the Lord to reveal to you the truth of your own heart, pray David’s prayer of Psalm 139:23,

“Search me, God, and know my heart.” Psalm 139:23

If what is exposed is that there is a misalignment, ask Him to help you. What you will find is an experience with Him where healing, renewal, and true love can be poured into the exposed wound, and the testimony to share with others of what true love really is, it is God. You can experience the passionate, vivacious, life-altering love of your eternal life today, and He wants to make that not a dream, but a reality.

Sources:

1. NASB
2.  https://www.gotquestions.org/agape-love.html
3.  https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/how-could-ark-avoid-being-capsized/?srsltid=AfmBOopRIkAEgzCLcjETxj1lfplfJnMptmbcLAMNrw2q0ZVoXPjgLOWh
4.  https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/c-s-lewis-on-why-horizontal-love-needs-to-be-god-centered/#:~:text=It%20is%20a%20glorious%20thing,Wheaton:%20Crosssway%2C%202018).&text=Justin%20Taylor%20is%20executive%20vice,can%20follow%20him%20on%20Twitter.
5. Life Together, Deitrich Bonhoeffer pages 34-35