Previous Reflections
REFLECTIONS
August 10, 2008
"’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ …And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Matthew 22:37, 39
Purpose of Life
The words describe more than The Greatest Commandment. The Pharisees tested Jesus by asking, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? His answer confirmed their belief, but in it He also explains the purpose of life. Think about it.
Jesus underscores the importance of the commandment to love the Lord, but He also answers questions of how to live, who to live for, and what our lives are about. His answer sets forth how our lives should be lived—with the passion of our heart, soul, and mind. It explains who should receive our attention—first to the Lord our God, then our neighbor, and finally ourselves. And it explains what our lives are about—the purpose of life is love.
So what is love anyway? In his book, A Second Touch, Keith Miller explains Christian love by recalling Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He discovers that:
“…Jesus was evidently not filled with a warm feeling of loving desire to die for man. As a matter of fact, our term for extreme discomfort, ‘sweating blood’ likely came from His experience that night. He evidently ‘sweated blood’ and prayed three times for a way not to perform this most loving act. And when He did agree to go, the love was expressed not by His feeling but by the fact that he acted out of love for His father whether He felt like it or not!
Wow! If this is true, then Christian love is not based on the feeling I had always longed for. Christian love is simply an act of the kind God wants performed for another person’s health and wholeness to help fulfill His will for that person. And my performing that act in Christ’s perspective and concern is the love, not my warm feeling about it.”[1]
Except for love of God, love is not always feelings toward another. Love is passionate obedience to God. Christian Love is helping others fulfill God’s purpose for their lives, and in doing it we also fulfill God’s purpose for ours.
So, what is love? As Keith Miller said, “Christian love is simply an act of the kind God wants performed…to fulfill His will for that person.”[2] It is the purpose of our lives.
“You are the light of the world,”
Richard Ì
Click here for Printer Friendly Version