“‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” – Jesus
(Matthew 22:37-40 NLT)
Late last summer, I joined a women’s Bible study group that was already partway through a book study. The book encourages readers to let God transform them from the inside out—to allow him to do deep work in their innermost motives, especially when those motives center on self-protection to avoid pain.
I’ve read about six chapters from the second half of the book, but I’ve struggled to connect with the author’s intentions. Going back to reread the first six chapters would probably help, but I haven’t done that yet.
I’m familiar with Christian self-help books, so the genre isn’t new to me, but truly internalizing this author’s message has been difficult. Maybe I’m just not in a season right now where this is the kind of deep work God is calling me to do.
Or maybe I am and don’t want to admit it.
Either way, the author makes a compelling point about why this kind of inner work matters. He believes that our pain avoidance is so strong that we will self-protect to the point of being unable to love God, ourselves, and others. In the end, then, the book is calling us to sort through the things that inhibit us from loving.
That call to love — stripped of all our self-protection and fear — reminds me of Jesus’ own command: LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD…. Simple, easy to remember, but not always easy to live out. Over and over Jesus taught people how to love God and others. Why did he have to demonstrate this “over and over”? Probably because they (we!) didn’t get it. I mean, we get it to a point, but there’s always new layers of love we can develop.
More on this later, but maybe the question for each of us today is: how can I better love those around me?
God of Love,
Thank you for your patience and grace with us as you work to make us more like Jesus. Help us be willing for you to do that work, and to trust you in it. Help us to love you, others, and ourselves, we ask in Jesus’s name, AMEN.