I imagine that one of the things that most baffles atheists about people who follow Jesus is the commitment we are called to have to follow what he called the greatest commandment:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37 NIV)
Why on earth would this, of all the commandments, be the “greatest”? Can you not live a pretty darned “moral” life without loving God? I’ve seen the arguments that one most certainly can, and if I’m being honest, there are many people I know personally who profess atheism yet seem to have more compassion for the poor and outrage over social injustice than many Christians. They also have good marriages and try and raise their kids to be honorable and hard working. If such things are possible “without God”, is loving Him even necessary?
In order to unpack my response to this question, I want to start with an analogy. When a person is in love with another person, something happens inside of their heart. Their decision making processes change. Instead of sitting on the couch and watching a movie, they are compelled to share a trip to the grocery store instead so they and the person they are in love with can spend some time together. Instead of surfing Facebook, they do the dishes.
Some would say that these examples of unselfish behavior are borne out of a desire to get something in return. In other words, the only reason you did the dishes was so that you wouldn’t get into a fight about watching the kids later. Or, perhaps, they’re making up for spending too much time out the night before.
Such arguments, I believe, miss the point of love in the first place. The very nature of love is that it cannot be earned. Love is not simply the “trading of favors” between two people. How do I know this? Because genuine love is totally possible between two or more people without the possibility of “acts of kindness” being exchanged. Think of parents who hug and kiss their screaming newborn baby for the first time — what good can the infant do for his or her parents at that point? Yet, even though the little one cannot take out the trash or sweep the floors, it is impossible to deny that parents still feel love towards their new arrival.
I look at love as a gift freely given to someone else that contains within it an implicit promise to “do life together”. That is, to share in all of the ups and downs of life regardless of what happens. When your heart is turned towards another person in this way, your lives become intertwined. Their problems become your problems. Their joy becomes your joy. Their goals become your goals.
When Jesus came down to the Earth, he presented an incredibly radical picture for how people should live their lives. He audaciously suggested that we bless those who persecute us, pray for our enemies, and forgive others 70×7 times (which is his way of saying don’t ever stop forgiving) for the same offense. He welcomed sinners into his inner circle and served the needy.
The Book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the exact reflection of God (chapter 1, verse 3), and this is where I believe part one of the answer to the question posed in the title of this post lies. If it is true that love implies an intertwining of persons to the point where goals and sorrows become shared between all parties, then the love of God becomes critical to healing a fallen and broken world. Things that upset God upset us. Things that God wants us to do become things we want to do as well. Our lives begin to emulate the example Jesus laid out for all of us.
Can you do these things without loving God? Maybe, but my question is, “What’s your motivation to do so?” That is, are you really “trading favors” or is this out of some deeper longing for meaning? Without God, the latter possibility is impossible; it raises too many questions like, “Where did this longing come from?” and “What really defines ‘good behavior’?” Both of these questions posit something greater than ourselves in order to answer them.
But, I think there’s something else here that frames the second part of what I believe is the answer to this question. I find it incredibly fascinating that God calls us to love Him first (literally with everything in our being) before anything else. On the surface, this sounds preposterous – how can you really love someone you can’t even see or hear or touch with your senses? Is God out of his mind?
Perhaps not surprisingly, I don’t think so. I believe that loving God first helps us realize how much we ourselves have been forgiven and how desperately He wants us to live the lives He originally created us for. I also believe that when we are secure in the Father’s love, we become able to love others the way He loves us. He sets the example of what unconditional love for others looks like, and we can go forward with confidence that no matter what happens, we will never be without someone who loves us in our lives.
But, there is another reason for why God tells us to start with loving him that may perhaps be the most profound — that if we can find a way to love someone we can’t see or hear or touch, loving those we can becomes a lot easier. By starting with arguably the hardest thing to do, He effectively has made loving literally everyone else possible.
It’s a brilliant plan, one that helps frame why I believe that loving God absolutely matters!