The radicality of love for God
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- If I say the radical word, what do you think?
- For you, what is something radical?
- Have you heard radical words?
But the greatest commandment commands us to give everything for God, to give ourselves totally to him. With all my being, nothing remains outside, my whole being belongs to him, that is what Jesus is referring to when he says with all his heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.
Summarize the law
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In this passage, the Pharisees ask a very important question for them. The teachers of the law always sought to summarize the law as much as possible, they had 613 laws and many asked themselves which of them was the most important, so in His desire to know this and seeing that Jesus was a great teacher decided to ask him to see if Jesus could get them out of his doubt. And Jesus sums up the law, all the rules in only 2 commandments, love God with all your life and your neighbor as well. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6: 4-9.
To do so, Jesus cites a well-known word in Deuteronomy 6 which was well known to the Jews.
The Jews had become very religious they had taken everything so literal and superficial that this passage of love to the Lord was carried on their foreheads and on long leather strips that they called phylacteries. Well, in this passage, you said you would tie it in your hand on your forehead and in the doors of the houses.
That's what Jesus said in Matthew 23: 5 (KJV 1960) "Before, they do all their works to be seen by men. For they enlarge their phylacteries, and spread the fringes of their mantles "
In these phylacteries was written all this passage of Deuteronomy, but the curious thing is to see the way Jesus reproaches all that, because these people lived only appearance, they only did it because they were seen to be very dedicated to the Lord but within they had nothing to do with God. Jesus tells the Lord that he loves himself not in an external way, but internally, in his heart, in his soul, in his mind.
I only want tonight to meditate on this passage, to think about how we are loving the Lord, how great is my love for him, really I love God, I love him.
He must be the center
Loving God like that, means that he should be my priority, all other things go to the background, everything revolves around him, he is the center of my life, in the day you think of him, in the day you pray to him , you are thinking of doing his will.
You think this is radical, it seems very extreme, it may seem like that but it is true, it is the truth of the matter. Jesus said it this way, if someone loves more his father, mother, brothers, children more than he loves me, then he can not be my disciple.
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Passages of men in the Bible who loved God
Daniel 3
What was in the minds of these men? What was in the hearts of these men, when they were told that if they did not worship the statue they would be thrown into the furnace of fire?
They were just thinking of one thing, honor God, love God alone, so they had to die, so their lives were snatched away but they did not kneel before any idol, they would not worship other than the true God. They were not going to make deals with them, they did not say good, we did not kneel but suddenly we can do something else so that they do not get upset, noooo, they did not make deals, they knew what it was or to please them and displease God.
How many times do we dislike God why someone does not get offended, because someone does not think badly of one, because they do not reject us from a certain social circle to which we belong.
What does God ask of you, what does God ask of me today ?, in this time, that you love him, that we love him, that we are willing to give up everything that pleases me in order to please him, renounce to please to people if pleasing them means displeasing God.
I do not know what is in your heart towards God, but if I say something, you and I need to love God more, we need to give everything to him no matter what it costs us.
The signal that we really have believed
What a high standard this is, how high is this level, so high that it is not human, we can never get to love God as he says if it is not because he first gave us that love, otherwise it would be impossible to do so .
That human being has a kind of love capable of loving as this verse says, a love that loves everything ?. The answer is nobody, only the love that comes from God himself. Only that love that he has poured into our hearts.
Who can love like that, who has that love, only God, so that's why we need so much of him, it's the only way we can fulfill this important commandment that summarizes together with loving our neighbor, sums up the whole law of God.
The love backbone of the Gospel, that's why the most famous verse in the Bible says it clearly.
"... In such a way I love God ... .. (John 3:16)
That is why the apostle Paul uses a part of his epistle to the Corinthians to describe that love that God has given us (1 Corinthians 13).
