Love in the Ultimate

The greatest commandment, of all is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Nathan Brown looks into this “love” that God has commanded.

A few years ago, after 20-something years growing up a Christian, I finally discovered what it was to love God. It had been a puzzling concept. I had no problem with believing in God and accepting the immensity and awesome power of God, and it made sense that such a God should be respected, obeyed and probably worshipped. However, loving such a huge God—probably incompletely described as the all-encompassing force—did not follow quite so automatically.
Often when people talk about a relationship with God, the point is made that knowing about God is not enough; knowing God is the aim. Knowing God is an important step, and continuing growth in our knowledge of God is vital to a growing experience of God.

However, truly experiencing God is another step up. As Kevin Hart explains, “Mystics are not so much concerned with knowing God as with loving Him” (The Trespass of the Sign). It is interesting to discover Jesus presenting us with a somewhat startling foundation for loving God. When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
Reading this well-known verse in this way may strike us as peculiar. God actually commands us to love Him. However, it provides something of an answer to my initial questions. As a first step, we should love God because He told us to.

It’s significant to find love as the first step in obedience to God. It puts a different slant on the obedience issue and the rest of the commandments are seen in a new light as based on love for God.

At another time, Jesus and His disciples were travelling to Jerusalem. They stopped for lunch in a small village where “a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made” (Luke 10:38-40). Martha came to Jesus, complaining that her sister was not helping.

Jesus’ reply sounds harsh and it is possible we don’t have the complete story; after all, someone did need to make lunch, but Jesus was making a point. He gently scolds Martha for being distracted by the little things.

Martha obviously knew Jesus. They were friends and it is possible Martha knew the food Jesus liked and that may have been what she was working on. Yet Jesus wanted to remind her that He was there for a more important reason than lunch. “Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

The Cloud of Unknowing is one of the classic works of Christian mysticism. The unknown author describes how Mary recognised the God-ness in Jesus and it was to that she was reaching out. “Nothing she saw or heard could budge her, but there she sat, completely still, with deep delight, and an urgent love reaching out into that high cloud of unknowing that was between her and God.”

Mary recognised Jesus as God and knew Him as a person, but there was another step up, an urgent, reaching love for God.
However, the question then arises as to how such a love can become a reality in our lives. Again we’re confronted by the problem of a God who appears very different and distant from us. The first step is finding out about God and getting to know Him. There are a number of practical ways to know God better.

The most obvious way is by simply spending time with Him, communicating with Him in worship, through His Word and by prayer. The rough equation is that as we get to know God better, to better understand who He is and what He has done for us and as we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, we will love God simply as a response to His great love for us.

But it is not a matter of locking ourselves in a small room with a Bible and not coming out until we can create some kind of warm, fuzzy feeling for God. Feelings can be difficult. There can be times of deep emotion and, on such occasions, feeling love for God is not a problem.

However, loving God is a practical thing. C S Lewis suggests “faking” the feelings might be just as useful. “People are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do?
“The answer is, act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it” (Mere Christianity).

Fortunately, searching for the answer is not that difficult. Jesus Himself gave us some pointers. He consistently taught that our love for God and our response to God’s love for us can find expression in how we treat other people. “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Serving others is important for our continuing experience of God.

Our love for God compels us both to sit quietly and reach out to God and to take practical steps to reach out to those around us. Of course, relationships are much easier to develop when both parties are interested.

le there may be some practical matters of the relationship to be worked through, the prospect of a significant relationship is enhanced greatly. So the thing we should always remember in the context of a relationship with God is that He wants us to have a relationship with Him, to experience Him.

Revelation 3:20 says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” This verse is often used in the context of people accepting God for the first time.

However, as Richard Foster points out in his book Celebration of Discipline, this invitation was written first to people who were already Christians. So the invitation is addressed to all. God wants to step up His relationship with you. Know about God—you may even know God—but you must also love Him. Such love is the key to experiencing God.

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