What Is Most Important To God?

Luke 10:27

And He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

If you were to ask most people how many laws there are in the Bible, they would probably say that there are ten. The law, however, is much, much broader than just the 10 Commandments. There are actually 613 different laws in the Old Testament.

Jesus, of course, knew them all. But, He also knew what was important to God. The law was important and it served a purpose but Jesus taught that every law, commandment, ordinance and statute in the Bible derived from two great thoughts: love God and love your fellow man. Even the 10 Commandments follow this principle. The first 4 teach us how to relate to God, the last 6 tell us how to relate to each other.

But Jesus took it all a step further. The most important occupation of every human being should be to love God. Not just in passing. Not just occasionally and not in a casual manner. It should be the driving passion of everything we do. Every thought taken captive, every moment dedicated to that one purpose, every feeling felt with God in mind and every movement motivated by our love for Him who made us for that purpose.

Our minds, our hearts, our bodies and our souls are to be trained on God in every way.

So, how are you doing with that?

Yeah, me too. Not so good.

Why is that? Why is it so hard to live that way? The answer is sin. Sin is constantly stepping in and turning us away from God. That is the consequence of the fall. Here is how Moses described it:

Genesis 4:7

“Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

Tomorrow, how do we love God and others in a world where sin is everywhere?