Love the Lord!

She sat in a wheelchair amidst a generation in their late eighties and early nineties who were oblivious to her or her situation, and then looked sorrowfully into the mirror that seemed to confirm her thoughts… Nineteen. I don’t belong here. This place is for old people! I can’t use my hands to play piano or guitar anymore, I can’t talk clearly enough to teach Sunday School, I can’t run, can’t even walk, can’t do anything that made me useful before. “What good am I?” she said out loud as tears welled up in her dark brown eyes and spilled down her quivering face. “Sarah,” the voice that responded held a weight and tone to it that only a mother can own, “what is the greatest commandment?” The pause was deliberate and focused.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength.”

The rhythmic beeping of machines kept on unnoticed in the background. “Do you need to be able to walk well to do that, or use your arm to do that? Nothing you need to fulfill the greatest commandment has been taken away from you.”

Do we hang our sense of worth on the way we can perform physically? Perhaps we are distracted from realizing the highest calling we have is to love our God, not just to serve Him. God wants our hearts first and foremost. The activities and business of the day should simply be how our love for God is played out-- the outpouring of our gratitude, affection, and personal relationship with the Savior of our souls-- taking form by the spirit in which we clean, the kindness that we choose to express to others throughout the day, or the boldness we illustrate by witnessing to someone who does not know the Lord as we do.

Loving God should always come before our “to do” list, as it will be what drives us to do and be all that pleases Him! Let's see our love for God as the “leader” of all that we do. Because love shapes the interests and pursuits of a heart, our love for God will cause all that we do to fall into line behind the leading pursuit of God’s desires for our life.

Helpful Verses to Memorize:

Exodus 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

I John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

Matthew 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

I John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.

Proverbs 8:17 I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.