Deuteronomy 6:5 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. It is said that one of the greatest statesmen that we have ever had, having gone to hear an evangelical preacher, was heard growling as he left the church, "Why, the man said that we were to love God," evidently thinking that the very height of unreasonableness. And when Wilberforce attacked the fashion of religion in the beginning of the nineteenth century, this was the point on which he fixed — that not only was God not loved, but people did not even think that to love God was reasonable. Going to work philosophically, he demonstrated, first, that what he called passion — meaning love — is the strongest force ill human affairs; and secondly, that religion requires exactly such a stimulus, because of the difficulties that it has to overcome. We are now living in a far warmer atmosphere everywhere than that in which Wilberforce was living, and we have no difficulty in acknowledging the power of emotion, or passion, or love in any department of human affairs. In politics, it is enthusiasm that carries the statesman through. In war, it is enthusiasm that makes heroes. It was the passion of friendship that made Jonathan able to lay a kingdom at David's feet. Love between the sexes is the grand mainspring of human refinement and industry, and affection in the home sweetens adversity, and enables even the weak to bear up under intolerable burdens. But, my people, there is one kind of love for which the human heart was made which is deeper and more influential than any other kind, and that is the love of God. I daresay that you and I would claim that we had tasted the other kinds of love, perhaps all the kinds, and we know well their power of developing energy and rewarding endeavour, and sweetening what is bitter in life; but let me press this question home on you — do we know the highest love of all? has this blossom burst yet on the tree of our being — love to our Father in heaven? It is to be what we call an absorbing, an overmastering love, pervading the whole being, and setting every power within us in motion. If the love of God be in us anything like the absorbing and over-mastering passion that Jesus means it to be it will lead us also to love everything belonging to God — His day, His house, His people, His call, and so forth; and wherever there is any deep love for the Sabbath, or the Bible, you will find when you come to the bottom of it, that it is due to love of God Himself, wakened in the heart in the way that I have indicated. But there is especially one part of worship) which Jesus connects very closely with the love of God, and that is prayer. You know those who love must meet: The oftener they meet the higher rises the flame of love, and prayer is the trysting place between God and the soul. (J. Stalker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. |
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