And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. | ||
| Deuteronomy 6:5–7 | ||
| Can love be commanded? If you think of love only as a noun, the answer is no. But love in the Bible is not a noun. It’s a verb, something you do rather than something you feel. Divorce is rampant today because we have lost our understanding of what love is. A story is told of an anthropologist who asked the Hopi Indians he was studying, “Why do you have so many songs about rain?” “We live in the desert,” they answered. “We sing about rain because it is so rare.” I wonder if that’s why most of our popular songs are about love. Love is a fantasy in the way it’s being hyped today. Jesus taught us that wherever our treasure is, there will our heart be also (Matthew 6:21). In other words, first choose to love and then the feeling will follow. So God here commands love. He doesn’t say, “I hope you feel love for Me.” He says, “I’m commanding you to show love to Me.” When you get up in the morning, when you go to bed at night, when you’re walking, when you’re relaxing, talk to your kids about loving God. My brother, Dave, modeled this wonderfully. Every time he would go anywhere - to the post office, to 7-11, to the hardware store - he would take one of his boys, knowing he could spend time with him. If you haven’t been teaching your kids, consider the Chinese proverb which says, “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today.” We should have done things twenty years ago. All of us know that. But the second best time to do what’s required is now. And if your kids have grown up and moved out of the house, there are always grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or neighbor kids with whom you can share the Lord. Pastor Jon Courson | ||
