You are required to love God!

Matthew 22:37-40 NLT

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

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It is a command! You must love God. Have you thought about it that way? God made you to love him. You were designed, created, and proposed for essentially two things; Love God and love people.

If you don't love God, you are not fulfilling your purpose. If you do not love God you are insubordinate. If you don't love God and your fellow man you are a law breaker.

It is interesting that people often read these as the two greatest suggestions. Or people hear what Jesus is saying as 'the two nice ideas.'

These are the rock bottom of law. Jesus is telling us that upon penalty of death and eternal judgement, if you fail and break these two laws, you have undermined the entire system of law.

Murder, theft, genocide, fraud, treason and sexual offences such as paedophilia and violent rape are all lesser and subordinate crimes against the law.

The most heinous crime you can commit it to fail in your love of God.

How do you measure up? Where do you stand in the eyes of God's law?

If you do not love God you are the worst breaker of law; you are the most evil.

Please, please please, hear what Jesus is saying. There is no greater law, rule, reason, purpose, or statute.

Love God or die.

Yes love is not a feeling. Love is not a mutual relationship. Love is not something you can feel indifferent about. You must love. Love is the command. Love is the rule.

Do you love God?

Do you love all people?

God loves this world. Sometimes when someone is angry and they want to express their anger they take it out on the person their angry with. If they get twisted and poisoned by the anger it isn't uncommon for the person to start hurting and breaking the things loved by the object of their anger. See people want to be loved, appreciated. That desire can turn ugly and obsessive. The selfishness can become so deep that they want exclusive attention. They can not trust. They can not share. In the end the person is satisfied with nothing short of worship. This kind of lethal attraction makes the individual lash out and destroy any thing that they consider a threat to their own worship.

See how people are mad at God. So they hurt the things God loves. They break God's stuff. They trash God's world. In the end they kill God. That's what we did to Jesus.

In a jealous fit of rage we hurt others and by doing so we try to hurt God.
Or we try to get everyone to love us. We want all the attention. We don't want to give God any attention and we don't want others to love God because it threatens us. We are selfish manipulative brats striking out against God. God made us to love him, but we want people to love us.

Why don't you love God?
God loves you.
Why don't you love what /who God loves?
God loves you, your enemies, and the friends of your enemies. God loves his creation. Why do we mistreat God's creation?

This is God's world. The people you pass are people God loves. God cares about your boss. God died for your attacker. God cares for the person who slandered you. God is patient with the person who mocks you. God feels compassion for your oppressor.

God commands you love him, that's what's best for you.
God commands you to love your fellow human, that's what best for you too.