Love the Lord Thy God

And 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: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
– Mark 12:30-31

Previously on the blog, I talked about the importance of a personal relationship with Christ. I said that heart knowledge changes the game, and today, I want to go a bit deeper about that.

You see, when we love God, when we have a personal relationship with Him, we no longer see Christianity as a set of rules. Yes, God gave us commandments to follow. But when we have a relationship with Him, we follow His statutes because we want to, not because we have to.

When we love God, we want to please Him. We recognize His purpose for giving us instructions. And we seek to learn more from Him. Sure, we’ll mess up. There will be times we walk away or intentionally do wrong. The important thing is to recognize that when we stray, it’s because we’ve taken our eyes off God. But when we keep our eyes on Him, following His Word is practically second nature.

Of course, that requires studying His Word. But the more time you spend in His Word, the closer you become to Him and the more you want to please Him. And the more we love the Lord, the more we love our neighbor.

Let’s keep in mind, though, that loves requires action. We have to work at this every day of our lives. But the wonder of a personal relationship with God is that He’s there for us. That He welcomes us back when we mess up. And we know that He loves us no matter what.