Love The Lord

Deuteronomy 6:5 – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Deuteronomy 11:1 – Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.

Luke 10:27 – He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

1 Samuel 12:24 – But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you.

Deuteronomy 4:29,37-38 – But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul…Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

Joshua 22:5 – But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Leviticus 19:18 – “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Mark 12:31 – The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Application:

• ·         Primarily in view here is the love shown by a subject to a king. To love King Yahweh is to be His loyal and obedient servant. Love for God and neighbor is built on the love that the Lord has for His people and on His identification with them. Such love is to be total, involving one’s whole being.
• ·         Love and obedience are frequently linked in Scripture.
• ·         Elsewhere Jesus uses the words “Love…God…Love your neighbor” in reply to another question, putting the same two Scriptures together. Whether a fourfold love or threefold, the significance is that total devotion is demanded. James calls such neighborly love the “royal law”.
• ·         Samuel summarizes Israel’s obligation of loyalty to the Lord as an expression of gratitude for the great things He has done for them.
• ·         “With all your heart and…soul” is applied not only to how the Lord’s people should seek Him but also to how they should fear Him, live in obedience to Him, love and serve Him, and, after forsaking Him, renew their allegiance and commitment to Him.
• ·         Both Moses and Joshua saw that obedience to the laws of God would require love and service from the heart. In the ancient Near East, “love” was also a political term, indicating truehearted loyalty to one’s king.
• ·         Jesus’ reaction, “Love your enemies”, was in line with true Old Testament teaching and was more in agreement with the middle-of-the-road Pharisees. Rabbi Nahmanides caught their sentiments: “One should place no limitations upon the love for the neighbor, but instead a person should love to do an abundance of good for his fellow being as he does for himself”.
• ·         According to Jesus, the second most important commandment states that love for neighbor is an essential component of love for God.
• ·         “He loved” is the first reference in Deuteronomy to God’s love for His people. The corollary truth is that His people should love Him.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV