The Great Commandment

In the chapter “Study Love,” from Love or Die: Christ’s Wake-Up Call to the Church Revelation 2:4. Alexander Strauch writes:

“If you want to pursue love, you must read and study what God says about love in his written Word. You will then grow in the knowledge of love and in the knowledge of God and Christ whom we are to love above all others. Nothing but God’s Word and Spirit can awaken our desire to love and transform our sinfully selfish hearts to love as Christ loves.”¹

There are fifty texts he considers to be key Bible passages on love. I agree so emphatically with him on the vital importance of love in the church, I’m posting one each Sunday, and I may include some verses to provide context or combine or even add a few. Pray, read and study the passage; ask God to transform your heart to know Him and His love and to love others.

These first three weeks the verses are the foundation for the rest of the texts that begin in Exodus and end in Revelation. Strauch started with God’s “Sermon on the Name,” then last week the second most important commandment and this week, the first.

“You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
Deuteronomy 6:5

Jesus said,

One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all you mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:35–39

May God’s mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you in 2012.

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Posts in the series:
1. “Love or Die”
2. “The Sermon On The Name”
3. “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself”
4. The Great Commandment

Heart-[foto & Concept by paul b. toman], Plismo: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
¹Alexander Strauch, Love or Die: Christ’s Wake-Up Call to the Church Revelation 2:4 (Lewis & Roth, Littleton CO): 27, 31.

In “The Sermon On The Name” I explain the use of Yahweh rather than LORD.