Life is fleeting. More fleeting than most of us think about on a day to day basis. But I think anytime we look back over the life of a loved one who’s gone, we realize again how very momentary it is.
I want to pack all I can into this life. I want to do all the right things, and I sure don’t want to miss anything God wants for my life. I don’t want to miss His purpose in having me here, and I’ve caught myself feeling frantic that I’m not doing enough, or worried that God’s disappointed that I haven’t gotten everything right. Maybe I’ve messed it all up.
I grew up learning to be a perfectionist, that if I could just do everything right I’d be worthy of love, and that spilled over into my relationship with the Lord. Do everything right and He will love me.
But that’s getting the cart before the horse.
God already loves us, and what He wants from us, is us.
He desires us to love Him, to grow in our relationship with Him.
If we practice loving Him with everything in us, everything good will flow from that. Anything we do for Him, any obedience, any service, any use of our gifts, will be a result of that fellowship of love.
Jesus said the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Matthew 22:37
That word commandment means an injunction, an authoritative prescription.
This is what the Lord’s been impressing on my heart lately. “Rest in Me. Focus on being, not just on the doing.”
And yes, of course I love the Lord, but there’s always room for that love to grow. He wants us to love Him –
– with all our heart. Choose to trust Him with every emotion, every anxiety, every worry;
– with all our soul . Choose faith in the love and goodness of God in every circumstance, no matter what’s happening;
– with all our mind. Choose to believe in Him with all understanding. Take every thought captive to obey Him.
Receiving God’s love and loving Him back is God’s prescription for the health of our entire being, heart, soul, and mind.
Sometimes this life doesn’t quite turn out the way we thought it would or ever wanted it to. But God knew, and He’s had a plan all along.
In the middle of the mess He says, “Focus your energies on loving me with your whole being, and anything I desire you to do I will show you and enable you to do it.”
Just a couple of chapters later, after Jesus tells His disciples the greatest thing we can do is love God, His disciples ask Him what will be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age.
He tells them, among other things, that “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:12-13
He didn’t say the love of some, or the love of many, but the love of most will grow cold.
Whether we’re facing the end of the age now or not, there is a lot of hatred and violence and destruction going on out there publicly, and in a lot of ways we’re each being stretched personally. We’re suffering, we’re hurting, we’re confused, we’re downright angry.
The enemy will try to use all that to cause our hearts to harden and grow cold.
But if we purpose to love our Heavenly Father with all of our being, we won’t be one of the most.
Instead, we’ll be one of the few with His love flowing in and through us that will be like an oil causing the light of Christ in us to shine brightest when the world needs it most.
This life is fleeting.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone looked back on our life and said “How they loved the Lord”?
And even more, facing Him at the start of our new life, having loved Him with everything?