For those who know me, I am opinionated and political. Normally a dangerous combination. Lately, my own thoughts and debate on the divisive issue of healthcare have caused me reevaluate my priorities through the lens of scripture. My own passion often neglects compassion when discussing matters of such importance.
Jesus is the ultimate example of love and justice for the Christian to follow. Sometimes I get so focused on my opinion, my paradigm being right, that I lose sight of the first commandment: Love God with everything within me. Such profound simplicity.
These Old Testament words are echoed again by Jesus in Matthew 22 after being questioned by the Pharisees. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Jesus understood this truth more than we ever could. In order to fully carry out all the rules and rituals that the Jews had to follow in that day, a love for God was required.
Tonight, for the first time, I began to understand this more clearly. In my quest to spread the love of God, I neglect to love God fully! I fall short in other commandments simply because I have overlooked the most important one-loving God! It is out of this love for God that I can begin to understand His heart for the world.
In relationships, one gets to know the other by spending time with that person. One doesn't suddenly develop intimacy overnight; it is a gradual process. Since we are created in God's image (Gen. 1:26) it makes sense that this human analogy fits so well with the relationship between God and His ultimate creation. We develop intimacy with God by cultivating a relationship with Him through surrendering our will to His, accepting He is the only way to God. We enter into this faith and continue our journey through discipleship--spending time in God's word, reading and absorbing the living truth-treasures found between the pages. Through our daily lives we interact with other humans and see how God's purposes and divine will work through our lives and the world around us.
Consequently, as we get to know the Creator, we gradually see things through His perspective to a limited degree. We develop compassion for the hurting, the poor, the sick, the "least of these" (Matt. 25:40). Yet it is only by and through this intimacy with Christ that my motives can be pure. I will love others simply because He loves them and is not willing that any man should perish without repenting (2 Peter 3). God so loved the world that He sent His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:16-17).
What a great hope! What a promise! Three sentences in John's Gospel sum it up this way: "This is My command: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you."
Oh that I would love like that! That is my prayer. That is my priority. Is it yours?
How simply you defined intimacy with God; by getting to know Him through spending time in His word. No different than developing an intimate relationship between two people here on earth. Thanks for sharing this insight.
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