Love of the Lord

I was saying Night Prayer last night and the reading struck me. It kind of felt like a tire iron hit me in the head. The reading was from Deuteronomy 6:4-7. It says, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest."

I think there is a particularly easy message to get out of these verses, but I think we tend to not recognize or to just ignore the simplicity of the verses. All good Christians know that we are to love the Lord. We all have our ideas of what it means to love the Lord, but I would say that if we were to honestly assess how we love Him in comparison to what these verses say, we would say that we don't love Him enough. I first want to say that the Lord is always happy when we love Him, but we know we can do better. It is something that we have to focus on everyday of our lives, not just everyday, but all the time throughout that day.

The life of a Christian is not for the lazy, the weak, the scared, but for people who are willing to offer up their lives to God continually. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week for their whole lives. It is not just enough to say we believe in God or that we love Him, but our actions must reflect our words. Do your actions reflect your words? Do you say that you are a disciple of Christ and then go back to your room and look at pornography? Do you say you are a disciple and then turn to your friends and gossip or make fun of someone? Do you say you are a disciple and when someone gets upset with you or gossips about you, do you seek revenge or do you turn your cheek? My brothers and sisters I struggle with these same things and many more. It is not easy to be a disciple of Christ, but we are meant to be trying as hard as we can and we all can continually improve.

Getting back to the verses, the real challenge doesn't lie in finding out how to love God with our hearts, our minds and strength, but to love Him when we are busy or at rest. So often our lives are filled with so much activity. Some of us may be in school, so we have school and homework and maybe even sports. Some of us may be working and may have families to take care of. We find that our day quickly fills up with things to do. Are all the things that was say we need to do actually things that we need to do? If not put them aside and save them for later, take that time and love the Lord. If you are busy it is even harder to love Him, but love Him by how you treat others or offer up what you are doing for a special intention, but always always stay focused on the Lord.