“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Mark 12:30
This scripture passage gets at the very heart of the Gospel. The greatest commandment is that we should love the One God with all that we are. Jesus then follows up by saying that if we love God with all that we are, we will also love our neighbor (all humanity) as ourselves. The heart of the Gospel is love.
Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus says that those who follow Him will be known by their love. John’s epistles declare that to know God is to show love, and those who do not love do not know God. It is all about love.
With this admonition, is important then to seek to understand what love is. Agape love is often characterized as selfless, unconditional, sand acrificial love. Thomas Aquinas defined love as “willing the good of the other.” Hans Urs von Balthasar connected love with beauty. This isn’t the format to really explore this idea that deeply, but I think that von Balthasar is correct. Beauty is not some subjective judgment that we make. The philosophical definition of beauty that I advocate is “that which, when seen or perceived, causes intellectual delight.” I think this is important.
There is no beauty, and I would argue no love, without delight. We cannot love something or someone in which, or in whom, we do not delight. That doesn’t mean we like everything about them. My children certainly drive me nuts at times, but I delight in them.
This may also mean that the assertion, which I have heard far too often, “I don’t like them, but I love them,” is dubious. Love is not just the intellectual idea that we should “will the good of others.” It is a passion and a hope, rooted in our delight for them, that they would truly experience good.
This is important when it comes to our neighbors, but it is equally, if not more, important when it comes to God. To love God, we must delight in Him. We must take pleasure in His character and His nature. I do not think we can love God if we do not like Him.
A Quote to Consider:
“Let us ask God to make us true in our love to make us sacrificial beings, for it seems to me that sacrifice is only love put into action.”
–Elizabeth of the Trinity
Honestly, there are times I do not want to have this kind of love. There are times I do not want to sacrifice, and there are people for whom I sometimes do not want to sacrifice. This is my failure. This is me failing to conform to the character of God.
Elizabeth of the Trinity is right that a love that does not sacrifice is not love. Sacrifice is me subverting what I want, whether big or small, for the good of someone else. That is love in action.
I was raised by a wonderful mother. She modeled this sort of sacrifice. Sometimes it showed in big ways. Often, it was in small ways. It was the way that she put the needs of others before her own on a daily basis that profoundly shaped me.
I am incredibly thankful for that.
Sometimes people comment about this sort of behavior in me. I take no credit for it. I learned it from my mother. She modeled Christ’s love for me. I learned how to live out the type of love in action that Christ embodied, and Elizabeth of the Trinity reminds us to pray for.
Yet, despite a wonderful model, I fail. I need to not only rely on the good example of my mother but also actively ask God to make my love true, sacrificial, and active.
Prayer:
God of love,
Help us to delight in You and in those You place around us. Teach us to love not just in word or thought, but through daily sacrifice, shaped by Your example. Make our love true, deep, and alive.
Amen
About Post Author
