Love Relationship

Earlier tonight we had a lesson/discussion in youth group about the Greatest Command: to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." (Deut 6, Matt 22, Mark 12, Luke 10)

It's a big topic and our time was limited, so we talked about our attitude toward God; how (as far as I know) this is unique to our religion; how loving God ultimately translates to obedience, yet adds a "filter" through which we view God's commands and our motivation for obeying.

And while we mentioned how God desires to have a love relationship with us, what we didn't have time to cover last night was how much God loves us (indeed loved us first)! That has me thinking...what if God didn't love us, and yet declared his greatest command to be that we should love Him? How different would that command be!

I watched the musical Annie! last week, and the orphans are compelled to tell their evil mistress, "We love you, Miss Hannigan!" It's of course a phony exchange for the girls to proclaim their love for her, and even Miss Hannigan knows it's a ridiculous formality meant to demonstrate her bitter authority. But our commandment to love the Lord has a whole different flavor, because He has loved us with an everlasting love. (Jer. 31:3)

God, in His infinite wonder, is able to love us when we are unlovable (Rom. 5:8). But we, in our weakness, are not forced to love an indifferent or spiteful God...we're invited to love Him completely, and in so doing complete the circuit of a two-way love relationship.