Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31
Jesus not only summarized the Law well with this answer, but He also told us what God sees as the most important outcome of our belief in Him. To believe in God is to love God unreservedly with all your being. It is not just a mental assent to a fact. It is a personal commitment to a relationship that places your will, in love, subservient to the supremacy of your Lord. And this is what God has always wanted from His people.
But this love also values people whom God has made in His image. We worship God in love. We care for our neighbors as we care for ourselves in love. The life God wants to see in us when we believe in Him cares for our fellow man and completely orders our priorities around loving God well.
And in these two great loves our lives are enriched and eternally occupied. They give us the joy our hearts crave. We will love God forever. Because men’s souls are everlasting, we can love people in this life, and into our eternity. And this is what our hearts were made to do. This will make us the most happy. Our ultimate pleasure can be found in living by Jesus’ summary of what God wants from us: Believe in God... love God with all you have... love your neighbor as yourself. The gospel gives us all this when we trust Christ Who loved us supremely and gave His life for us so we can live this way.
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