In Jesus, As Jesus
We see in this commandment of Jesus a revelation of God’s operating system.
Mark 12:29-31
Love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength…AND…love our neighbor as yourself.
God IS love.
He doesn’t just DO love or HAVE love. He IS love. Which means the very nature of His being, the way He functions, the language and mode of His very being, through which He thinks and then acts, IS love.
Mark 12:29-31 defines what love is.
So, throw away every other definition of love you have ever thought was true and start with this as your first reference point.
God’s love is a giving love. Full stop.
God’s love doesn’t need or wait for the one that He loves to respond positively in any way.
God’s love doesn’t get discouraged or offended when the object of His love rejects that love.
God’s love doesn’t punish the other person, or shut them out in anyway, even if His love is betrayed or abused.
God’s love doesn’t count the personal cost of any personal suffering that offering that love to another might bring to Him. Nor does He add that cost to the account of the other person.
He just keeps on loving, pursuing, persuading, supporting, believing, hoping with unwavering loyalty and relentless commitment.
Imagine a love that exists with no other agenda but to focus on you - and your good!
This is God’s love.
God’s love is passionate about helping ALL to find and live their best life.
God’s love is relentlessly patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others, with an authentic kindness and genuine enthusiasm for protecting their inner worth and dignity. God’s love is completely content and strives for nothing that promotes itself or advances itself.
God’s love has no desire to make others feel inferior and has no need to sing its own praises.
God’s love is consistent and faithfully the same - day after day after day. It does not behave out of character…EVER.
God’s love doesn’t keep score, keep record of ANY of the wrongs done against it and gets no joy from seeing another person stumble.
God’s love is a fortress where everyone feels protected rather than exposed.
It never loses hope and always cheers us on - to our highest good.
Because of this type of love - we have Jesus. The Bible says, ‘that God so loved - that He gave us Jesus.’ And because of Jesus, we have an inseparable union with God Himself that has existed in the mind and heart of God for us from before He ever said - “Let there be light.”
Our redeemed union with God, that is evidenced in Jesus, is the ultimate definition of what self-giving and total commitment to truly love actually looks like. The full and complete re-definition of the Godhead itself, the Word becoming flesh, the forever re-defining of the Second Person of the Trinity, in human form, forever truly human and forever truly God - literally screams the definition of love that God’s nature operates from.
So, His commandment of loving with all your heart, mind, soul and strength now has perfect context. That’s the way God does relationship with everything that exists.
Fully.
All chips in the middle of the table. Nothing held back. Full throttle, open valves, total commitment, all of Him fully given and fully risked. No questions asked or price to pay (at our end).
Except…one question.
God says - will you join me? Will you join me in the power of My divine life?
Firstly, will you love Me as I have loved you?
Because if you do, something will shift in you. The selfishness that is filling you with performance anxiety; with endless striving; with trying to live to your self-imposed, perfect, flawless standards - or the imposed standards of others; with the weight of the world’s expectations of power, wealth, prestige and success - all tied like heavy millstones around your neck…
My love will shift this from you.
When you love Me you open yourself to Me and My Presence and you will find in Me something that you cannot find anywhere else - total acceptance and assurance.
In My love you are enough…just as you are. The warmth of My embrace will heal your wounds, quench your need to strive and be accepted by others and fill you with a sense of safety and security like you have never known before. Your inner world will cease from its relentless schedule of doubt and second guessing itself and you will know true peace.
My peace.
And then… I can show you how to heal the relational world you live in.
I will show you how to love those you live, work and laugh with: as I have loved you.
My acceptance of you, and My abiding assurance and peace in you, will fuel your capacity to reach out beyond yourself, and love others with My kind of selfless, others centered… LOVE.
Jesus knew when He was giving us this commandment, that the sequence of healing had to flow from God, into our hearts, then into the world we live in. Jesus is saying…”Come to Me…first. Learn to love Me - in the same way I love you…with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength.”
Allow His love to fill the very essence of your being. Then watch how that extravagant love relocates and re-defines your self-love. Washing yourself in His presence recalibrates our inner sense of identity and self. His presence affirms in us, as He shows us in ever growing detail, the mirror reflection of our Original design as sons and daughters of Him.
And, as sons and daughters, we shift from “Jesus commands me” to love others to, “Jesus invites me to live and love as He lives and loves.” The stance of the son and daughter.
Who do you need to love well?
Are there people in your world that you should be praying for - rather than keeping score with?
Who needs a second chance in your world?
Who do you need to forgive and let back into your circle of acceptance and connection?
Who do you need to build bridges with?
