Today's Devotion

Deuteronomy 6:5

“Whom do you love?”  Family comes to mind first for many.  Whatever your family brand (big, small, nuclear, or blended) those people are very often the closest.  And at the same time, in our evermore electronically-connected world, you can “friend” almost anybody.  From the shallow to the deep, the pool of those we love can be quite wide.  Now…what if there had to be one love that was far, far above all our other loves?  That would be an extraordinarily difficult decision. 

“How do you love?” we might also ask.  You let your husband relax with Monday Night Football.  You buy your wife flowers.  We comfort our friends in difficult times.  We share our secrets and our dreams with them.  Think about all the ways you love.  Now…what if you were to never leave off loving, to never fail to show it?  That would be an extraordinarily difficult demand…or would it?

God’s people of old were to love him first and best, always and absolutely.  From the top of one’s head to the tips of one’s toes, on the surface of every action and at the bottom of every motive, there was to be love for God.  God’s people of long ago knew they had failed to love God in this way.  We know the same.  So many things and people vie to win first place in our hearts.  God very often loses, left last in line or at least to share the stage.  What we do often has “me” in mind and God somewhere else.  Great love like God demands is difficult, impossible even…unless it’s experienced first. 

God’s people of old had seen great love in action.  He saved them in miraculous ways from death and enemies, again and again.  They saw it.  In case we are in doubt that God loves us similarly, we need to look only in one place.  At the cross, God makes it obvious that he loves us with all that he has, first, best, without end.   We see God’s love in the perfect love of Jesus.  Jesus lived and died to love God like we couldn’t.  He rose from the dead and lives to bring God’s love to us.  As we experience that kind of love, we’ll learn to love God first and always.  And there’s no shortage of ways to show him how much we do.  With all of our thoughts and activity shaped by our knowledge of God’s great love, we live to say, “I love you, God.”