And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. — Deuteronomy 6:5
Several years after my wife and I were married, I sat down to have a meal with a friend. We were talking about how so many people we knew were divorcing and having marriage problems. We talked about how we knew we loved our wives and our love continued to grow. But then he made a statement and said, “it makes you wonder if they ever truly loved each other to begin with.”
Certainly, those people had proclaimed their love outwardly, but we did not know what was on the inside. We did not know the challenges and struggles they faced. I am certainly not a marriage counselor and I would never try to give them advice as I am far from perfect. The statement that he made though has resonated with me for quite some time.
I was reminded of Matthew 15:18 where Jesus shared that what is in the heart comes out of the mouth. It comes out not only in our words but our actions. The things that we are passionate about, we talk about them, we engage in them, and we tell others about them. We don’t hide our thoughts and feelings about those things that we love.
We see this in Jesus’ example all throughout the New Testament. He talked about His love and the subject of that love. The item of affection, the thing that He was passionate about, was us! He loved us so much that He willingly gave His life for us. The entire story of Jesus was about us! He loved us, died for us, became our sacrifice, and ascended to prepare a place, for us!
He certainly loved us, but do we love Him? After all, the things that we are in love with and passionate about, we cannot help but have it come out in our words and actions. Is He the center of our actions, the subject of our affection, and the one that we point others to? If not, are the actions in our lives causing others around us to ask if we ever truly loved Him to begin with? As the scripture says, we are to love God with all our heart, soul, and might. Everyone around us should see that we are completely and totally in love with Him.