Just How Much Should I Love God
September 21, 2018 Deuteronomy 10:12-22 Mark 12:28-34
Suppose for a moment you fell in love with someone and the person said, “I love you.” Then you responded, “I Love you too.” But what if they said, “just to be sure about this, “how much do I have to love you, to keep you by my side.” How many of you would be slightly offended by this question? How many of you would be having second thoughts about this person? How many of you would think this person is trying to keep their options open for something else and isn’t ready for a full commitment?
What do you think of a person who wants to do the bare minimum to get by? As long as I at least get a D, as long as I at least don’t come in last, as long as I just walk across the stage, that’s enough for me.
Have you ever ran into someone who wants to know what’s the minimum requirement that I have to do, to make it into heaven. At funerals, we try to reach at least the minimum amount of works that a person has to do to make it in. Many people think of entrance into heaven, is based on a scale of good works verses bad works. Some people actually think they keep the 10 commandments and that’s going to get them into heaven. As George and Mabel were leaving church after their once a visit trip on Easter, the pastor said, it sure would be nice to see them more often. George said, don’t worry pastor at least we’re keeping the 10 commandments. The pastor looked at him with a look of disbelief. George said, “I didn’t say we were perfect, Mabel keeps six of the commandments and I keep the other four.
When it comes to actually going to heaven, the minimum requirement and the maximum requirement are one and the same. Eternal life is a gift from God. The maximum thing you can is receive God’s gift. The minimum thing you can do is receive God’s gift. God’s gift to the world is Jesus Christ. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ and confesses him as Lord of their life shall be saved. No matter how many ways the Bible tells us this, we still want to be saved by works and bargaining with God.
Do you know what God wants from us? God wants our love. Giving God our love is the only way God can give to us, all the blessings that God wants us to have both in this life and in the life to come. In the Old Testament, God had delivered his people out of a life of slavery by doing numerous miracles. Even though God had a perfect plan for housing, food, clothing, and fun for them in the promised land, because they didn’t love God, they rejected it.
God still loved them and was with them for the next 40 years as they stumbled in the wilderness, waiting for those who rejected God to die off.
They were now on the verge of getting another chance to go into a place of blessing and God tells them: Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (NIV2011) 12 And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
How do you feel, when you’re doing something for somebody else’s own good and the person says, “I don’t want you doing nothing for me.” And then person goes ahead and messes up their life. When they come back to you asking for help again, what’s the first thing you want to say. “I Told You So.” The good news for you if you are away from God, is that God wants you back, and He’s not even going to say I told you so.
I want you to know this morning, that there is a God who loves you. A God who truly wants what is best for your life. A God who knows what tomorrow is going to bring in your life. A God who knows what will really make life worthwhile and purposeful for you. A God who has revealed Himself in Scripture and who wants to reveal Himself to you. All he wants from you is love.
I am not talking about a feeling for God, but a choice to follow God. Feelings come and they go. You can’t really love God, until you have actually tried to follow God. It’s like this, you can’t feel your way into getting into good shape. You have to do certain things such as running, lifting weights, jogging or walking in order to genuinely be in shape. Once you get there, you may not feel like you are in shape but you are.
An acknowledgement of God or belief in God is a far cry from loving God. Even coming to church does not confirm a belief in God, a love for God or a relationship to God. Last week, we saw that doing things in Jesus’s name is not a proof of our being saved.
A love for God, begins to start with an acknowledgement of who God is and what God has done for us. A person came to Jesus one day and asked him, of all the rules to follow, which is the most important. We need to know the answer to this question, because everyday we are bombarded with rules to follow. Some of them we obey unconsciously because we know they are in our best interests. Get up. Say Good morning. Go to work. Go To School. Stop at the Red light. Some of them we start to bend because of our circumstances.
In the first five books of the Old Testament the Law, there are 613 laws. 248 were positive things to be done and 365 of them were things to be avoided. How do you memorize them all, and how do you know which ones are the most important. A guy came to Jesus and asked, “which of the laws is the greatest.” Jesus ties all 613 laws down to the word love. They will involve either loving God, loving others or loving yourself. If you ever lose your bible and don’t know what to do, simply ask is this loving. Loving to God, loving to the person and loving to myself.
It is important to note where Jesus starts when it comes to the commandments. He starts with God. Mark 12:29-30 (NIV2011) 29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
First he tells, there can only be one God in our lives. It’s important to recognize that there are many voices speaking to you to be the god in your life. They are not all equal and none of them are equal to God. All of our backup plans, just in case God does not come through is a god.
Joshua was the leader of God’s people after Moses. Joshua saw the miracles in Egypt as well as in the desert. Do you know, what Joshua had to tell the people who had seen God’s miracles in the desert. The God who fed them for free for forty years. The God who made water come out of rocks. The God who gave them meat to eat. Made sure their clothes did not wear out, and their shoes grew with their feet. The God who gave them the promised land and defeated their enemies.
At the end of his life Joshua still had to tell the people in Joshua 24:14 (NIV2011) 14 “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. God can bless us all day long, and it does not mean that we will love God.
There were some people still holding on to some gods they had hidden in the background. What will it take for some of us to let them g?. We still serve the alleged gods of voodoo, horosocopes, mediums and spiritist, yet think we are walking in a love relationship with God. Get rid of anything spiritual that does not lead to Jesus Christ. Christ is all that we need to be in relationship to God.
When Jesus says the love the Lord your God, the word for love here has nothing to do with our feelings. Jesus is not saying for us to wish up some kind of feelings inside to let us know we love God. He is saying make an unqualified decision to put God first in your life with a commitment to do what it takes to please God.
Feelings will rob us of our blessings from God. The devil will see to it that you don’t feel like praising and worshipping God in the service. It’s not the feeling that bring the praise and worship. It’s the praise and worship, that envelops you with the feeling.
You won’t even know why you are crying, or why you feel overwhelmed with the presence of God, or why all of a sudden your know God has this situation under control. You know, we are God’s cheerleaders. What would you think of a group of cheerleaders, who only cheered after their team scored a touchdown. Good cheerleaders come to a game with at set cheers they are going to give before the first point is ever scored.
The word of God never tells us to wait until we feel like worshipping to worship. It says, “come into His presence with singing.” I don’t care what it says, I’m too cool to do it, too dignified, too tired, too whatever. We got a lot of cheerleaders that need to be fired and sent back to cheering school so they can start to love God.
Jesus would laugh at the question. “Just how much should I love God?” The good news is that he will tell us how much and in what ways. Mark 12:30 (NIV2011) 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ First of all the amount required is just 3 letters long. All. Jesus wants it all.
Do you see why the gospel is so offensive. Why couldn’t God be happy with most, or a good deal, or even 60%. Because God knows whatever we cling to, will eventually take over and our allegiance to it will overcome our allegiance to God. Nothing can be held back, because God held nothing back for you. Would you be happy knowing 60% of your sins were covered, or most of them were covered, or even a good deal of them was covered. What do you call a person who tells the truth 95% of the time? A Liar.
When the Lord possesses a person, God possess all that person has, because the person realizes, it all comes from God anyways. Eventually it all goes back to God in one form or another. It’s hard for us to realize that God wants all of us existence 24/7. Don’t forget your goal is to spend eternity with God, so learning how to do it 24/7 is just a test to get us ready.
The word heart here refers to the center of our desires and affections. This is going to be a deal breaker for many of us, because we will not choose between Jesus and our boyfriend or girlfriend, or Jesus and our desire for success, or Jesus and our being a star. You see Jesus wants to be able to plant the desires in our hearts that he wants us to have.
nnnnnHe wants to put in there a desire to spend time with him, a desire to keep ourselves holy for him, a desire to see the world as he sees it. Jesus wants to change our desires and affections. The word heart also means without pretense. Which means appearing to do the right thing, but doing it for the wrong reason? You ever asked somebody to put their heart into what they are doing? The why behind what we are doing is always important to God.
The word soul was considered a person’s being and uniqueness. What do you have that others do not? God wants you to use that to demonstrate your love for him. The unique gifts inside of you are to be directed to loving God. The way you smile, the way you sing, the way your dance, the way you give, the way you encourage, the way you teach, the way you serve, the way you run a business, the way you coach or play sports. When you use these things as God intended, God feels your love for him.
The word strength refers to your physical capabilities. Do you have the strength to do the things which God asks of you or are you lazy or planning to wait until you feel like it. We must examine where we are spending our physical energy and why are we doing it? What does our praise look like for Jesus as compared to our favorite singer, athlete, or personality figure? Whatever I can for do for God, I’m going to do it.
The word mind is considered the intellect or the thought process. This is the part of you that’s going to transform you into something different than what the world wants to make of you. That’s why we have this verse Romans 12:1-2 (NIV2011) 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Loving God is not some kind of a mushy feeling nebulous process. It is taking concrete actions with our total being to do things that God has told us to do and to refrain from things God has told us to stop. At our basic level, to love God is to trust that God has our best intentions. Jesus stated it as clearly as possible when he said, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” That’s not something we welcome into our lives.
We can’t love God and love the world at the same time. In contrast to this verse we find the opposite verse, 1 John 2:15-17 (NIV2011)
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Martin Luther once said “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing,and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
Just how much should you love God, only with everything that you have. Never forget God gave His very best so that you might be saved.
