Recently
I have been studying the topic of love in the Bible. What a topic….
I usually just begin with a word search and
try to read every scripture related to that word, in this case the word
'love'. The first few references of the
word love in the Bible are related to a man’s love for a woman. The first mention we have of people loving
God is found in Exodus 20 where Moses receives the Ten Commandments. In the first commandment, God speaks very
clearly about those who love or hate Him.
Exodus 20:4-6 (NASB) "You
shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above
or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. "You shall not worship them or serve
them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers
on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to
those who love Me and keep My
commandments."
This
verse is the first of Ten Commandments. Although this does not say “YOU WILL LOVE ME” as a straight command it
is clearly implied. In Deuteronomy,
Moses is giving his final instructions and reiterating these commandments to
Israel, we read;
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NASB) "Hear,
O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your might."
This is a familiar verse because Jesus refers to it while
being questioned about the "greatest commandment”. This verse is clearly a command; “you shall
love the Lord!” I bring this up because
much of what is taught or understood about love doesn’t seem to fit within the
context of a command. I mean, can you
command love from someone? Do we
understand why God commanded us to love Him? Is there context that we are missing to understand commanded love? These are questions that loom in my mind when
reading these verses. Here is a final
verse that seems to help me understand all of this a little better;
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (NASB) "Now,
Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your
God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul, and
to keep the Lord's commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you
today for your good?
Moses tells Israel that God requires from them several
things, among them is “love”. Once again
we run into the concept of God commanding or requiring love from us. I find it interesting that at the end of this
passage Moses mentions that those things which he is commanding them to do is
“for your good”. Verse 13 is the key to
help us understand why God would command/require us to love Him. I don’t know about you, but it helps me a bit
to know why.
Let’s briefly look at the context of both Exodus and
Deuteronomy. God had called Moses from
the wilderness to deliver His people Israel from slavery in Egypt. Moses confronts Egypt’s leader until he
finally allows the people to go. All of
Israel leaves Egypt (the Exodus) with many great signs and wonders performed by
God along the way. God delivers them
from Egypt with the hope to bring them into a blessed land that he promised to
their ancestors. Israel did not know the
Lord at this point. They had been slaves
in Egypt for near 400 years. During that
time it’s safe to say they knew very little of the God of their ancestors
(Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). It’s
possible that Israel had heard some stories and the promise God had given
concerning the land of Canaan which was meant for them. But it seems that they did not personally know
God as their ancestors did. The first
thing God did while Israel was in the wilderness was establish His commandments
among them (the 10 commandments). This
was important because for 400 years Israel was enslaved to a people and culture
that worshipped over 400 different gods. The Egyptian culture was very immoral, evil and stood against the
character of YAHWEH. The 10 commandments
were given in some ways to help Israel know YAHWEH’s standards. These commandments provided them the insight
needed to know God and His ways while separating them from all that they had
known in the worship of other gods.
The command to “love God” was given to teach them. Israel knew nothing about God (or very
little), and their understanding of love and worship was skewed from their
experience in Egypt. All of Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy is to help them know YAHWEH. It reminds me of teaching children. Children have very little knowledge or
understanding, but they learn very quickly. When you teach children you have to be specific and often the first
lessons you teach them are related to what not to do. Creating boundaries of what’s right and wrong
while you explain to them why is almost always how it works. The first command was a benchmark for
Israel. They needed to understand that
loving God is what they were created for and all that He did for them gave them
more than enough reason to want to do so.
Deuteronomy
10:13 (NASB) says “and to keep the Lord's commandments
and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good."
God commanded them everything for their
“GOOD”. Our God does everything out of
love and goodness. Even though he
commands us, it is still for our good! That is amazing to me. We are
children and he is our father. He is not
just setting rules; he is establishing truth for us. The truth is, He made us to love Him and when
He says “you shall love me” it is because we need Him to tell us in this
way. God has proved His love for us,
which should warrant a response of love from us. However, when what He has done somehow loses
its power in us to respond back, we have His command which instructs our heart
in truth. When we read “you shall love
me”, it will quickly remind us of all that He has done which will draw out love
in our hearts for Him. Even our capacity
to love has come from Him, the one who has called us to love Him back. May we give all of our love to Him without
reservation. Lord, we love you. Teach us to love you more…..
In other posts I will explore what love is and how we
actually love God. Stay tuned....
Ben Dixon
Ben Dixon
Director - Ignite Global Ministries
igniteglobalmin@gmail.com
