I want to talk about something fundamental. We’re going to discuss what God really wants—the most important thing to God.
So here are 9 mysteries concerning this subject
- What God Really Wants
The thing that God really wants from us is love, and there are several ways we know this.
One of the ways is that Scripture flat-out tells us that God himself is love. In 1 John 4, we read:
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16).
Love is a major theme in the Gospels. In one of the most famous verses—John 3:16—we read:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
That’s one of the key ways God manifests his love for us: he sent his Son to save us.
But love is not only one of God’s characteristics. It’s something he also expects of us. In all 3 of the Synoptic Gospels—or Matthew, Mark, and Luke—we learn about a controversy regarding the greatest commandment of the Law.
The Law of Moses contained hundreds of commandments, and Jewish scholars debated which were the most important. You might think that the 10 Commandments—which are found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5—were the most important.
But one day a scholar asked Jesus which was the most important commandment of all. In Mark’s version of the event, we read:
Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and 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.’
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).
So the two greatest commandments are love of God and love of neighbor. That tells us that God’s highest priority for us . . . is love. It’s the thing he’s most concerned about.
And we see this all across the New Testament, including statements from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul
- Love and the Ten Commandments
The principle of love is behind the 10 Commandments, which is why love is higher than them.
The early commandments, like “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me, you shall not make idols,” “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord,” and “You shall keep holy the sabbath”—the Lord’s holy day—all of those have to do with loving God.
The later commandments, like “Honor your father and mother,” you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, and you shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s—all of those have to do with loving your neighbor.
In fact—speaking of these commandments—St. Paul says:
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).
So it’s clear that love of God and love of neighbor are what God really wants from us
- Who Is My Neighbor?
Fallen humans—like us—are always looking for exceptions, and if you’re considering the idea of loving your neighbor.
A natural place to look for an exception is by asking, “Well, who is my neighbor? Who counts as the neighbor I am supposed to love?” Maybe I don’t have to love everybody without exception, but only certain people.
In Luke’s version of the controversy about the greatest commandments, that’s the next question that gets asked. Jesus says you need to love God and love you neighbor, and the scholar immediately asks, “And who is my neighbor?”
In response, Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan, in which a Jewish man is brutally mugged and left for dead on the road. A priest passes by but avoids him. Then a Levite passes by and avoids him. And finally, a Samaritan comes by.
At this time, there was a lot of tension between Jews and Samaritans. As we read in John 4:9, “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” In fact, Jews often looked down on and despised Samaritans.
But in Luke, something extraordinary happens with the Samaritan:
He had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back” (Luke 10:33-35).
So the Samaritan—who you’d expect to be a hostile foreigner that Jews look down on—has compassion on the man who got mugged. He treats his wounds, including pouring oil and wine on them (oil being a soothing agent, and wine being a disinfectant). He arranges for the man to be taken care of at a local inn, which he pays for himself. And he even offers to pay back the innkeeper for anything else he spends taking care of him—all out of his own pocket!
Having told this parable, Jesus asks the scholar a very important question:
“Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”
He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”
And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:36-37).
So Jesus wants us to show mercy on everybody—even if they look down on you and despise you, the way Jews often treated Samaritans.
Matthew’s Gospel also makes it absolutely clear that all human beings are our neighbors, and we need to love even our enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, we read:
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:43-45).
Now today, we don’t often think of rain as something we need, because most of us are not farmers—and so rain can be more of an annoyance. There’s even that saying, “Into every life, some rain must fall,” which is from a poem by Longfellow.
But in Jesus’ day, they had an agrarian society, and they were intensely aware of their need for both sun and rain. So Jesus’ point is that God shows love for everybody by giving even the wicked the sun and rain that they need to grow their crops.
But the wicked are the enemies of God, and yet that’s how God treats them, so Jesus says we must also love our enemies. He continues:
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:46-48).
So yeah, it’s natural to love those who love you, but that’s nothing special—so it doesn’t receive a reward from God. However, it’s supernatural—meaning like God himself—to love everybody, and that does receive a reward from God.
So we need to be perfect—meaning complete—in who we love. We need to love everybody . . . just like God
- What Does It Mean to Love Someone?
Does loving everyone mean that we need to have warm, rosy feelings for everyone—all the time?
The answer is no. Emotions are not what’s under discussion here. Emotions come and go and are not fully under our control. They also are an unreliable indicator of love.
For example, suppose you’re a parent, and one day you see your toddler go running out in the street in front of an oncoming car. Now, you love that child, and so you rush out after the child to snatch them back from the oncoming traffic.
But at the moment you do that, you are not experiencing warm, rosy feelings. You are feeling terror and horror. You may even be angry with the child for taking such a foolish risk. But you are genuinely loving the child by getting them back to safety.
This shows us the difference between love as an action—a choice—and love as an emotion.
The kind of love we are called to have for others is not the emotion. Our emotions come and go, even with the people we love most—like our friends and family. We don’t always feel rosy around them—like in the saving the toddler from the traffic example.
Instead, we are called to love them with our actions—to love them with the choices we make. And that brings us to what the essence of biblical love is: It is to will the good of the other person. If you rush out into traffic to save your toddler, you are willing the good of the child by getting him back to safety. So the essence of love is willing the good of the other.
That’s why Jesus says we should love our enemies by praying for them. When we pray for someone, we ask God to give them good things, and by praying for our enemies, we are willing the good of our enemies.
- Unconditional Love?
In recent years, a lot of people have been talking about “unconditional love.” This phrase was basically unknown before about 1940, but by the 1990s, it really took off and became a buzz word. It rocketed up in popularity, and it peaked around the year 2011, after which, it began to fade somewhat.
That’s fine with me, because I’ve always felt people were using it in a sloppy way, without really grappling with the issues involved. Because—while there is an unconditional aspect to love—there is also a conditional aspect that is entirely appropriate.
Just think about it: You could take the teaching that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves to mean that we’re supposed to love everybody absolutely equally. And there is an element of truth to that. We are supposed to will the good of everyone. That’s the unconditional aspect of love.
But if you press that idea too much, it would mean that we don’t have a special love for those close to us. In other words, we shouldn’t love our parents, spouses, children, or friend any more than we love a random stranger on the street. And that’s not true.
Even though we’re called to love everybody, we do have special duties to those who we have ties with. “Honor your father and mother” is still part of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16). And we know that’s still binding because when Jesus was asked what one should do to inherit eternal life, he replied:
You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother (Mark 10:19).
Similarly, St. Paul tells his readers:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. (Ephesians 6:1-3).
So—despite our love for everybody—we are supposed to give special consideration to certain people on the condition that they are members of our family. There is thus a conditional aspect to love as well as the unconditional aspect.
We see the same thing with the broader family of Christians. St. Paul tells us:
As we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith (Galatians 6:10).
So we need to do good to all men—that’s the unconditional aspect of love. But we need to especially do good to others on the condition that they are fellow Christians. That’s the conditional aspect of love. We thus shouldn’t talk as if unconditional love was the only important thing.
- Love and Forgiveness
The conditional aspect of love has a special application that can otherwise cause confusion, and it has to do with forgiveness. Jesus tells us that we need to forgive others if we want to be forgiven. He put it right there in the model Christian prayer. We’re supposed to pray:
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us (Matthew 6:12).
And to make sure we get the point, immediately after teaching this prayer, Jesus says:
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;
but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:14-15).
So forgiving others is really important.
But what if they don’t repent? What if they’re not sorry for what they did to us? What if they don’t even want us to forgive them? Do we have to forgive them then?
First, we should probably mention what forgiveness is. It fundamentally means willing their good—or loving them. That doesn’t mean that we forget what happened. If we’ve learned by experience that someone may hurt us, then we don’t need to treat them as if they’re completely safe. But it does mean willing their good.
And it means being willing—to the extent we can—to set aside the emotion of anger we may have toward them.
We must always be willing to forgive them in this sense. Like Jesus said, we’re supposed to pray for our enemies. That’s the unconditional aspect of love.
But too much sloppy talk about unconditional love can make people think that we’re supposed to forgive people irrespective of whether or not they repent—irrespective of whether they even want our forgiveness.
But that doesn’t make any sense, because—while God wants everyone to repent and be saved—he doesn’t forgive them and send them to heaven unless they repent. Demanding that we forgive people without repentance would mean that we’re supposed to be more loving than God, which makes no sense.
If God expects people to repent to be forgiven, then we are expected to do the same. As Jesus said, in order to be children of God, we need to be like God—not out do God. And this is what we find when Jesus discusses the issue of forgiveness. In Luke, we read:
If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him;
and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him (Luke 17:3-4).
So—the way Jesus taught forgiveness—we should always be willing to forgive someone, even if we may not have warm feelings toward the person. And that’s the unconditional aspect of love.
But the granting of forgiveness is conditional on the person actually repenting.
- “With All Your Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength”
Some people have a question about the first great commandment: What does it mean to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength?
Some Christians argue that we can never fulfill this commandment. They’ll even argue that—since this is the greatest commandment—any violation of it must be a mortal sin. So we are constantly, inevitably all in mortal sin because we can’t fulfill this commandment.
If you aren’t—at every moment—loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, then you’re in mortal sin, and thus the Catholic understanding of salvation must be wrong since the Church holds that we are not always in mortal sin.
But this fundamentally misunderstands the commandment. In fact, it’s reading a set of assumptions into the text and thus distorting its meaning.
The command itself is found in Deuteronomy 6, where we read:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord;
and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
Now, to understand a passage of Scripture—whether it’s a commandment or anything else—you need to read it in its original context and ask what it would have meant to the original audience.
In this case, notice that we have the opening statement that the Lord our God is one Lord. That’s a denial of polytheism. The Israelites are not supposed to be worshipping other gods.
Instead, they are to love the Lord with all their heart, with all of their soul, and with all of their might.
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- In other words, their hearts are to be devoted exclusively to the Lord—not to other gods.
- Their souls are to be devoted exclusively to the Lord—not to other gods.
- And their might is to be devoted exclusively to serving the Lord—not serving to other gods.
But does that mean that they’re never supposed to do anything else? That they’re supposed to spend every bit of mental energy doing nothing but loving and worshipping God? Of course not!
We know from common sense that God expects us to do other things. He expects us to earn a living—which means thinking about and spending energy on other things. He expects us to cook and eat food—which means thinking about and spending energy on other things. And he expects us to relate to and raise our families—which means thinking about and spending energy on other things.
In fact, if you just read the rest of the passage, you’ll see that God expressly indicates that we’re supposed to do these other things. He goes on to say:
And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).
God expects us to live normal, active lives in which we devote time, attention, and energy to other things.
So what does it mean to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength? In context, it means loving the Lord rather than other gods—having him—not other deities—as the one to whom we devote our heart, soul, and strength.
It also means having God as our ultimate priority. In other words, if push comes to shove, we need to stick with God no matter what. In fact, if we’re called upon to lay down our lives for God, we must be willing to do so. Fortunately, most of us are not called to that, but as long as you have God as your highest priority—as long as you would be willing to side with God whenever the stakes are grave and you are called upon to do so—then you do fulfill this commandment, and you are loving God the way you should
- “Love and Prayer”
Love can also clear up another mystery that people wonder about: Why do we pray?
After all, it’s not like God doesn’t already know what we need and want. When he introduces the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus himself tells us:
When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6:7-8).
So prayer is not about giving God information that he doesn’t already have. He’s omniscient and knows everything. He already has all the information that he needs.
Why, then, does he want us to pray?
Well, God has no needs—for information or anything else—so prayer isn’t about helping him. Therefore, it must be about helping us.
But what is it helping us with? Here is where God’s top priority—love—comes into the picture.
In the first place, we are supposed to love God, and by praying to him and asking him for the things we need and want, we’re not simply thinking about ourselves. We’re thinking about him, and we’re thinking about him as the source of all we have. So that gives us reason to love him.
Similarly, we’re supposed to love our neighbor, and by praying for our neighbors, we’re not just thinking about ourselves. We’re thinking about them and willing their good. So prayer also gives us the opportunity to love our neighbors. That’s why St. Paul can say:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:1-4).
So prayer gives us both the opportunity to love God and love our neighbor, which is why God has chosen to reward prayer by granting some of our requests.
Incidentally, any time you have a puzzle like prayer—why should we do this?—it’s a good idea to look at the problem through the lens of love, because we know that love is God’s highest priority, and it explains an awful lot.
- Love and Salvation
Since love is God’s highest priority, love is ultimately what we need. As St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
And, as he put it in Galatians:
In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).
If you have faith working through love, you are in a state of grace. You are—as Jesus said—a son or daughter of the Father if you show the love that he does. If God is your highest priority, then he is your ultimate destination, and so you will be saved.
This is why the Bible sometimes speaks of salvation in terms of fulfilling God’s commands—all of which involve loving God and neighbor. As we saw in the passage from 1 John that we started with:
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16).
So—in a very real sense—the Beatles were right when they said, “All you need is love.”
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