Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
God accepts nothing from us given in pretended devotion. He sees through all our hypocrisy and feigned affections and they are detestable in His sight. He understands fully our innermost motives and thoughts which are often hidden from others, and perhaps even from ourselves. The heart is deceitful beyond all cure, Amen? Everything is laid bare before Him of Whose eyes we must all give an account. He desires wholehearted devotion and a willing mind from His saints because that’s how He loves us – wholeheartedly and willingly. No good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.
Christ is to be our greatest treasure, our all in all. While many claim Him as Savior, few do as Lord. We who professes Christ are not to seek Him lazily and coldly preferring the world and all its allurements and trappings over the pleasure of His smile, the comfort of His peace, the encouragement of His presence and the delight of His joy. He will not share His rightful throne of our hearts with anything or anyone. We are to desires Him above all and those who do not will not obtain Him. He has prepared heaven for us. Are we prepared for heaven?
God desires to be our all without any rival for our greatest affection. And our love for the Master should demonstrate itself through our actions. What kind of love never produces a single act of self-denial, or generosity or zeal or heroism? Our Lord did all for us. And embracing His love helps rid us of the great clouds of worldliness and the deep fog of sin which distorts our ways, our wills and our works.
Christ honors those who honor Him. Our love draws our Jesus and one word from Him can turn our weeping to rejoicing, our troubled fears to quiet peace, our tumultuous distresses to His constant comfort. We mourn our weaknesses yet out of our weaknesses we are made strong through His love and power. It is only Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit that can make us unflinchingly constant in our walks. Oh the deep, deep, love of Jesus – the matchless lover of our souls. Should we return His great love for us with such lukewarm devotion and honor? Indeed, His love should compel us to love Him more.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NIV)