As believers, we have a new life within us that wants to please God. But what does pleasing God look like on a Monday morning? Let’s ask Jesus:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

God is our creator and the source of all we are and will ever be. There is no “me” and no “you” without God. And yet, our thinking rarely follows the obvious implications of that fact. Too often, we think of ourselves as autonomous and independent beings. We imagine that our lives are something that we create for ourselves and that God’s role is to help us achieve our “best self.” But our ideas of autonomy and independence are lies. Every breath we take is a gift from God, and no matter how hard we try, we can never earn anything from God through our efforts. For our strength and our very life come from God. At best, we can only return to Him a small portion of what He has already given us. We are children trying to repay our parents with our allowance.

But does that mean we should do nothing? Hardly.

The book of Revelation begins with seven letters to seven churches in a region known as Asia 2000 years ago. The first letter was to the church in Ephesus.

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

The church in Ephesus faithfully endured the pressures of culture and false teaching. They were tireless in their work for the Lord and their testimony. But there was a problem. Somehow, while they were serving Jesus and persevering in a hostile city, they somehow abandoned their first love. How is that possible?

Can you serve Jesus without loving him?

This is a troubling question, and the answer seems to be yes, which is even more disturbing. Humans are complicated critters. We do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons, often without reflecting on those reasons. Are we trying to one-up our neighbor or gain status? Are we trying to validate our worth as human beings? Or are we trying to impress God to earn favor? The list goes on and on and on.

How can we know if we are walking in the love of Jesus or doing things for reasons of our own? The passage above tells the Ephesian church to “repent and do the works you did at first.” But what works might these be? John helps us with his first letter:

And this is his commandment,

If you read the rest of 1st John, it is clear that loving Jesus and loving others are two things that can not be separated. If we love Jesus, we keep his commandments. And his first commandment is to love one another. Therefore, to love Jesus is to love others.

The Single Heart

So, where am I going with this? I started out talking about a single heart. Holy, in its most literal meaning, describes a singleness of purpose. It is a thing set aside for only one use. If a holy thing is used for any other purpose, it is no longer holy.

We are a holy people in Jesus, and our one use is to serve him.

And that service is loving those he gave his life to save.

Love is not Impossible

Jesus told us to love even our enemies. By cultural definitions of love, this is quite literally impossible. But here is where the English language and modern culture conspire against us. Greek has at least four words to describe the things that English tries to describe with one word: love. There are certain kinds of love we will never feel for our enemies. To feel some kind of warm admiration for someone who murdered your child, for example, would be a form of mental illness, not love.

Love is - benefiting others at my expense.

Love is - choosing the welfare of others over our own.

Love is a gift.

This is the love Jesus lived. This is the love Jesus gave to us on the cross. We can give this kind of love to everyone because Jesus has given that kind of love to us.

This week, let’s reflect on the price Jesus paid for our well-being and be brutally honest about our state when he found us. While we’re at it, we should reflect on our current state. These reflections will help us to help others. Jesus loved us while we were still in active rebellion against God. He sought us and found us when we were lost. And he loves us still, despite our failings.

This week, when we meet someone, let’s ask ourselves, “How could I help?” Trusting that the love Jesus has given us will be all we need to love others, let’s make the love of Jesus and the love of others our single focus.

Have a great week!