“Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’”
Mark 12:30
The recent devastation from floods and fires prompted me to
ask my students what three things they would grab if they only had two minutes
to get out of their homes. Their replies
were telling answers to life’s biggest question—“What matters most?”
A couple of millennia ago a curious lawyer inquired the same
of a guy he could tell was pretty smart.
Jesus was at the temple tackling tough topics like taxes, marriage, and
the resurrection as he talked with the Pharisees. “One of
the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good
answer, he asked him, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important
one?’”(Mk 12:28). In other words,
“What matters most?”
This man’s entire life and livelihood revolved around the
“thou shalts” and the “thou shalt nots,” and the Jews had plenty of both because
on top of all the divine mandates laid down by the Lord, they had added layer
upon layer of man-made laws and traditions intended to prevent and
protect. The result was a lengthy list
of “dos and don’ts” with each command seeming to demand priority and different
rabbis touting the prominence of one over another.
And so the man asked, and so Jesus answered. “The
most important one is this: ‘Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your strength’”(Mk 12:30). Of all the things we do in life, the thing we
should do most, the thing we should do best, the thing we should do first, is love
God—completely and absolutely with all that we are.
Such devotion and adoration is not an emotion we conjure up
on our own but is a response to God’s preceding passion for us. “We
love him because He first loved us”(I Jn 4:19). He groaned in the garden, sacrificed on the
mountain, and triumphed in the graveyard.
His action prompts our reaction, and our own affection is but an echo of
His unfailing and everlasting love.
The key to loving God is to listen—to open our ears to the
greatness and grace of the One—the only One—who whispers His power through
creation and shouts His passion from the cross. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is one.” He utters His
desire for us through every word of His Word and proclaims His affections for
us through the workings of His Spirit. Many well-polished idols loudly declare their
ability to fulfill the desires of our hearts—significance, position, security,
joy, and contentment, but only by tuning out what is false and listening to the
One who is true will we truly love and truly live.
“Hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
Listen. Love. And let Him be your one and only.
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