You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

(Deuteronomy 6:5)

How can a man love God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his strength? Without God Himself, it would be impossible.

If any man could do so, he would have obeyed all the laws of God. He would be considered a perfect man. And all the other men should have looked to him, admire him, and learned from him. All the world should have even worship him.

The reality that no one can do so reveals the imperfection of humanity. We all need God Himself to be able to love Him as He asks (and to love others as He has loved us).

God is love. If we are able (more precisely, enabled) to love, God is in us. If God is in us, we would love. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

God is Spirit (John 4:24). We must be filled with His Spirit that enables us to love God. Without His Spirit we can never walk in love.

Now, if God already knows that it is impossible for us to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength, then why He gave us this command in the first place?

It is the mystery of God. His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts are not ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).

But the mystery of God has been revealed in Christ, who is the true source of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:2-3). This truth is not earned by human efforts, but revealed by God Himself to mankind. It has been our choice to believe Him or not.

God respects our free will, but we have to know there is a consequence for every decision. A forced love is not true love.

God never demands perfection from man (apart from Him). He knows we are not perfect (and will never be) and only He is perfect. [If there is a perfect man, he would have been god and, as a result, there would have been two gods, would it not be so?]

Yet, the amazing truth is that God loves us in spite of our flaws. And the only way we can love Him back is through Him alone. After all, aren’t our heart, soul, and strength from Him? Yes, they all belong to Him!

It is now clear that man can only love God through Christ, the Son of God. To love God means to believe in Christ. To love God means to live by His Spirit (that is to worship Him in Spirit and truth). No man can then ever boast because Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit deserves all the glory.

This Great Commandment is therefore a divine invitation for every man to embrace the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit).

Vancouver, May 21, 2020