THE GREAT COMMANDMENT is a daunting, impossible expectation for us to love our God with every ounce of ourselves, with all our minds, hearts, souls, and energy. Frankly, I’m not sure how that works. I understand, after 61 years, how to love another human being, at least how it feels to me. And it isn’t like I once thought of love. Falling in love, or finding in another person what is missing in yourself, the image of adoration, a voice that charms the dickens out of you, that says things you wish you’d always heard: those are only the threshold of love. In time, I had to learn that love is total sacrifice, preferring the other’s needs and desires to my own, realizing here is someone I’ve got to care for and be with and give to over the long haul, for a lifetime. That love is not easy to find in myself.
And then God tells me I have to love Him more than that. At first I’m at a complete loss to know where to start. He’s not an object of desire, for He’s not an object at all. Surely, something in my heart is fulfilled in Him, the yearning for something greater than myself, the power and authority and goodness I have always been missing in others, in places I’d hoped to find these qualities. But I can’t love power. And goodness seems to say I’m unworthy. I can fear such a God, respect His authority, certainly, but love Him? Perhaps you see what I mean.
Well, the solution is to stop trying to get to love through the old ways we’ve found lead to an immature love, infatuation, rapture and such. Some have luckily found a great passion in their love of God right off, but not all of us are that way. And anyway, the deeper love is found over time—it’s a time borne, time tested thing.
The first way we experience God, if we really understand who He is and who we are, is fear. Many biblical passages say that the fear of God is the starting point, if we are to ever become truly wise. Not terror or horror: this holy fear is awe and respect in true proportion to the fantastic Being we have encountered. Without Him we would not exist, and if we displease Him, we go from His Presence to our doom. And, as we are, we can claim nothing before Him, and we know we are unworthy of Him. That ought to sober us up. Hell is a terrible future. Heaven is not where we’ve come from, and it’s not where we go when we die, if we’re still guilty. Every human man or girl is in big trouble. What do we do? We can’t do a thing. We can’t even stop failing Him.
“If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” 1 John 2:1-2 The offer of salvation, of forgiveness granted for all our sins, is not a fond hope or a deception. It’s His Last Will and Testament granting amnesty and eternal life to you and to me, forgiven of every last mocking wound with which we sent our Savior to Golgotha. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And He’s given the assurance of our forgiveness right here in His Church, for “the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:15-16 Three thousand Jews heard St. Peter tell the account of Jesus, and realizing their peril, cried out, “What shall we do?” He replied, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
So we are forgiven, and in claiming Jesus our Savior and Lord, in the waters of Baptism and the laying on of the hands of Apostles, we receive the cleansing and empowering of the Holy Spirit. We empty ourselves of ourselves, of selfishness, of pride, of self-justification, of the death that had progressed so far in us from our first moment on earth. We empty ourselves of sin and its consequence, and then we are filled. His living eternal Spirit comes inside us and begins a great work of transformation, sanctification, renewal, rebirth. The new man is nothing you can produce in yourself. You can pretend, but the genuine article is made by God. His indwelling Spirit offers you steps of new faith, challenges to love, meaning to your prayers, a voice inside you to guide you, and true fellowship with that God who’d seemed so remote and foreign before.
Now, many Christians stop here, or believe they have arrived when their own salvation and relationship to God has been secured. The end game is getting to heaven, being ‘saved.’ But I challenge that notion with the very commandment with which we started this quest. To love the Lord our God with all we are means more than being forgiven, more than even being a host to His Spirit. Love isn’t passive, receptive, submissive as to Allah for a Moslem. Love of God is something we must do, a charge we must perform, an act of obedience. What is it?
How much do I owe God? I owe a bank some amount for the loan that bought my house. It’s the largest monetary debt most of us ever owe, all in one sum. The payments are pretty steep, and interest is compounded daily. But that’s just a house. My car is initially worth something in the five figure realm. Payments on a car are hundreds a month, and then gas some hundred more, and then there’s insurance. All these things we buy and owe money for. Do you love your bank? But surely I hope you love your home, and every American loves his or her car, let’s face it.
We don’t get God in our lives by a loan from a bank: He is the gift of Himself to us without price. The salvation we needed, the forgiveness we desperately sought, the Spirit so magnificently bestowed to fill us have all come at His expense. He didn’t say, “That’ll be $100,000.” What you’ve received can’t be paid for, and not because it’s without value: no, it’s because it’s too expensive for any human being we know to pay it. Bill Gates couldn’t make the down payment. Nor could any Rockefeller, Trump, Buffett or Saudi Emir. One drop of Jesus’ Blood is more valuable and more powerful than the Sun, than all the universe. It’s too much for us to pay. And that Blood bought your life back. His required exchange for that is not money. It’s you.
“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Col 1:13-14 That’s what we’ve received. He did it for us, and for a greater purpose. Jesus left this earth in order to set the stage for that purpose. He sent His Holy Spirit into our lives to fulfill that purpose. His purpose was that we bear fruit. How many parables of Jesus deal with fruit? “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” Luke 8:15 He even counts the fruit: 30, 60, 100. In St. John’s Gospel account, Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing… If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.” John 15:5-8
We believe that He is our source of life and salvation, but then He believes we will bear fruit, by His power in us. And we are willing to bear fruit, even if we must be pruned. We will eventually bear much fruit, and He says our fruit will remain. What is this fruit? It can be many things. It can be those outpourings of the Spirit that result in miracles, small and great. But every week, in the middle of our devotions to Him here in His Church, we give up a portion, a token of our substance. We do it by obedience, by way of thanks, in an acknowledgment that of ourselves we can do none of it, we wouldn’t be living were it not for Him.
How much can we give Him to let Him know we see it, we realize who He is and the immense and glorious thing He has done for us? Even if we gave it all, it wouldn’t match His gift. What do we do?
The Old Testament gave a standard to the children of Israel: the tithe. Ten percent of your increase, of your income, goes to God through His assigned ministers. It provides the synagogues, places of prayer and teaching, outposts of God’s Kingdom. It provides the Temple and its necessary sacrifices. It provides for the poor. But first and last, it provides proof of our love. He loves us, and we can’t really respond but by obedience. We can’t often bleed for Him, or die for Him, or make grand gestures of those kinds. But we can obey, and in this small way demonstrate our devotion to Him. Our obedience in this little way is akin to Abraham’s willingness to believe the voice of God for a son in his old age. God saw Abraham’s faith, acted out in obedience, and counted it for righteousness. Obedience through faith yields God’s praise of us.
Such obedience also releases something from heaven. What do you suppose God would perform miraculously through you, in your life, for others, toward this world—if only you were submitted to Him? I often think Purgatory is watching a movie of my life as it should have been, of my getting to the things I might have done for Him, if I’d only obeyed, and all the benefit it would have brought for many. The cork in the bottleneck can be something as simple as our fear to commit ourselves to tithe. 10% may seem a great deal if you’ve never tackled it. Sure, it’s enough to hurt, enough to be missed. That’s wonderful. It’s a sacrifice, not a tip. But even waitresses ought to get more than a 10% tip these days. Is God more important to you than your waitress? He didn’t bring you your meal: He is your meal, and the life you derive from it.
Each year we enter a pledge to the Church for the coming 12 months, January to December. We don’t always know our income, but a tithe is always based on a percentage of what we will actually receive. Your pledge form only asks for an estimate. It’s the easiest way to know we’ve obeyed in this one simple way. I’ve done it for over 30 years, and I’ve not been in want. Lean years, certainly; hardships and times of need, of course. But I haven’t had one moment of fear or doubt that God would come through. That’s His side of the bargain.
How do you love God with all your heart, mind, soul and power? He’s told us, if we will listen. “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.” John 14:21
PFH+