How to Do What Jesus Said
But here’s the question: How in the world do you or I begin to love God with all that is in us, and how in the world do we begin to love others as we love ourselves? The truth is many people believe Jesus’ commands are impossible. But I don’t believe God is playing games with us, and I don’t believe Jesus gave us commands that could not be fulfilled.
So let’s take these questions in order. This week we will ask, “How can we love God with all that is in us?” In two weeks we will ask, “How can we love our neighbor s ourselves?”
How can we love God with all that is in us? The short answer is, by ourselves we can’t. We need help. As fallen human beings, part of our sinfulness is a selfishness that causes us to turn inwards and to put ourselves first. In Alcoholics Anonymous, participants have to admit, “I was powerless over my addiction…. I had to turn to my higher power.” Similarly, according to the Bible, all people have to get to the point where we can say, “I was powerless over the sin and addiction of self-centeredness in my life. I could only become God-centered and love God with my whole being through God’s Spirit.”
Here is a scripture that demonstrates this: “The fruit of the Spirit is love….” Galatians 5:22. In other words to have the love that Jesus commanded us to have, we need God’s Spirit. Another way of saying the same thing is that unless God changes our hearts, we cannot love as Jesus commanded us. An Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, talks about this. Through this prophet God tells how the change in us that makes love possible can happen: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:26-27 NIV.
So in order to fulfill the first of Jesus’s two commandments (Loving God with all that is in us) we need to ask Him, by His Spirit, to change our hearts. Let me close with the words of a song by Eddie Espinosa which express this very well:
“Change My Heart O God
Make it Ever True
Change My Heart O God
May I be Like You
You are the Potter I am the clay
Make me and mold me
This is what I pray
Change My Heart O God
Make it Ever True
Change My Heart O God
May I be Like You. “