The purpose of creation is LOVE. God created us to love and be loved. When He thinks, He thinks of propagating and perpetuating LOVE. When He acts, He acts to propagate and perpetuate LOVE. When He speaks, He speaks to propagate and perpetuate LOVE.
Our Creator is LOVE. His nature is LOVE. Rick Warren said, “1 John 4:16 says God is love. It doesn’t say God has love. He is love! Love is the essence of God’s character.” (Purpose-Driven Life, p. 24)
LOVE too is our nature. Remember, we were created in the image and likeness of the First Tree. Matthew 5:48 says, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” It means we are potential perfections (seeds) that must grow into actual perfections—into trees that constantly produce fruits of LOVE.
18 What is the kingdom of heaven like? What shall I compare it to? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. LUKE 13
31 It is the smallest seed you can plant in the ground. 32 Yet it grows and becomes [a tree] the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch on its shade. MARK 4
In us is LOVE that “yearns to be expressed and shared; it needs an outlet,” said Billy Graham (The Journey: How to Live by Faith in an Uncertain World, p. 27).
It is most natural for us to love and most unnatural for us not to. Act contrary to our nature—immobilize or isolate it—and we feel heavy, down and lonely; our life becomes empty and meaningless. However, let our nature fly, let it find an outlet, and we feel light… excited… inspired… fulfilled… easy to smile and laugh…
What is our world without LOVE? Rosario “Boots” Zulueta Santos said: “Without LOVE, our week would be Sin-day, Tears-day, Wasted-day, Thirst-day, Fight-day and Shatter-day.”
We are created to build and nurture LOVE-relationships. God blessed our first parents and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number” (Genesis 1:6). A mandate has been given and it extends to us, their seeds. The mandate is to propagate and perpetuate LOVE. In this context John 15:12 becomes our accountability—an obligation—to our Creator.
12 Love each other as I have loved you. JOHN 15
6 Fill all the world with fruit. ISAIAH 27
17 Wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then… full of good fruit. JAMES 3
Gratefulness dictates that we reciprocate God’s love for us in a manner most acceptable to Him. He deserves nothing less.
19 We love each other because God loved us first. 1 JOHN 4 nlt
14 Anyone who does not love remains in death. 1 JOHN 3
Now, why must we love God with all our heart and with all our mind and with all our soul and with all our strength?
The teacher of the Law in Mark 12:28 asked the question. Y’shua replied, “When a man loses a purse, does he turn only his eye to look for it? Or only his hand to feel for it? Or only his tongue to ask for it? Certainly not! He turns his whole body and employs all his powers to find it. Is this not true? Now, is not your Father in heaven more valuable than your purse?” (Gospel of Barnabas, chapter 100)
Why does God command us to love Him? DOESN’T IT SOUND LIKE GOD IS selfish?
God is not selfish. Our existence is one proof of this. He created us to share with us what He has.
Rick Warren said, “God made us so He could love us. This is a truth to build our lives on.” (Purpose-Driven Life, p. 24)
God has no need to be selfish. The whole creation belongs to Him; everything in it is His (Job 41:11, Psalm 24:1, Leviticus 25:23, Psalm 50:10, Haggai 2:8). God is called God because He is perfect and complete. Nothing can be added to Him and nothing taken away (Sirach 42:21).
25 He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. ACTS 17
The command to love Him is for our own good. You see, our journey through life is always a matter of choice between the kingdom of God and the evil empire. Life is like standing at the edge of a cliff—with Lucifer urging us to jump and God urging us not to. Lucifer is urging us to jump because it would kill us. God is urging us not to jump so we might live. The devil does not have our best interest in mind (John 10:10). But God is the opposite. He wants us to keep busy living, not dying.
6 I am the way, the truth and the life. JOHN 14
Strictly speaking, God cannot be served by human hands. Nothing can be added to HIM and nothing taken away. How then should we translate “Love God” into action?
Love of God = Love of neighbor. That is the equation.
8 If you really keep the royal law found in the Scripture, which is Love your neighbor as you love yourself, you are doing right. JAMES 2
20 For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 [God] has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 JOHN 4
The term neighbor encompasses our family members, friends and relatives, churchmates, schoolmates, workmates, townmates and countrymen—even the strangers that come into our sphere and the peoples that live in foreign lands.
God identified “Love your neighbor as yourself” as the second greatest commandment (Mark 12:31). Now, if “Love God” is Commandment No. 1 and “Love your neighbor” is Commandment No. 2, isn’t that two? If we add the Two to the Nine, there would be Eleven, isn’t that right?
No, it isn’t. God gave Ten, not Eleven.
There is only one LOVE Commandment. Y’shua said Love your neighbor is “like” Love God (Matthew 22:39). For whoever loves God must also love his neighbor and whoever loves his neighbor must also love God. No one can love God and put his neighbor aside; neither can he love his neighbor and put God aside. The two commandments are corollary, made to be part and parcel of one another. In the sight of God one is not pleasing without the other. To love God is to love your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to love God. Love God and Love your neighbor are clamped together. They are not really two separate commandments, but one.
Y’shua said, “When you have seen your brother, you have seen the Lord.”—Tertullian, On Prayer
Does it follow that our neighbor must be loved as well with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength?
The answer is Yes. That precisely is how Love God is translated into action. “And since a neighbor is every person, regardless of race, gender or age, we get to love everyone!” said Paul J. Meyer (Unlocking Your Legacy, p. 31).
If an occasion arises wherein we must choose between GOD AND NEIGHBOR, who must we choose?
Remember that God called one “first” and the other “second”. Choose Love of God over Love of neighbor. Prioritize the Creator over the creation.
Why was the patriarch Abraham called righteous? He was called righteous because he chose God over his beloved son Isaac. Abraham always prioritized God.
We love our neighbor only because we love God. Make no mistake about it. Love your neighbor is but an offshoot (meaning only a subsidiary or an extension) of Love God. God should be our first and foremost priority, and Love God our primary focus.
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. COLOSSIANS 3
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