Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (I Corinthians 13:4-8a)
The first part of the first
passage above (through “the Lord is one”) is known as the Shema. It’s a part of
Hebrew morning and evening prayers. Jesus described the second sentence is part
of the Greatest Commandment. The second passage (Leviticus) completes that
commandment. The rest of the passage from Deuteronomy expresses the level of
intensity of focus we should be placing on the Lord being one and our love for
the Lord. It’s to be everywhere in our lives, as a constant reminder.
The passage from Leviticus was
yesterday’s verse at Biblegateway.com. Coincidentally(!? Ha!) today’s exercise in
soul formation is to think about what loving the Lord our God with all our
hearts, souls, minds, and strengths, and loving our neighbor as ourselves would
look like in our thoughts, feelings, choices, bodies, social contexts, and
souls. What would it look like in our lives if this was the way we lived?
The first two glimpses we can
take of this is to work with what Dallas Willard taught, that love does not
seek to dominate, and love does not withdraw. We may refuse to back down from
truth and may try to convince God or other people of what we believe is best
for them and/or all concerned, but we do not impose, demand, threaten, assault,
bully, badger, or otherwise force our choices on them. Likewise, we don’t withhold
ourselves from those we love. No cold shoulders, no turning our backs, no
walking away, no rejection. We may separate temporarily if we become too tired,
too angry, too frustrated, too _______ but it is never a punishment or
rejection of the other.
Another way to look at it is
through the lens of I Corinthians 13. Can we look at ourselves in the mirror
and say or either God or the neighbor (or ourselves!) “I am patient with
________. I am kind to ________. I do not envy _________. I do not boast to
_________. I am not prideful around _________.
I do not dishonor ________. I do not seek my own benefit over that of
_________. I am not easily angered with
__________. I keep no record of ______’s wrongs. I do not delight when evil befalls
___________ but I rejoice in the truth. I always protect ________. I always
trust _______. I always hope for _______’s wellbeing. I never give up on
________. I do not fail ______.”
Try it. Where you find something
in you that struggles with or screams “Liar” about what
you are saying, make note of it as a matter of prayer. Another good use
is to go through the list, changing “I” to “God” and filling in the blanks with
your name or “me,” or perhaps the name of someone with whom you’re having
problems, again noting where something in you struggles.
If we loved God as we should,
and loved our neighbors as ourselves, and loved ourselves properly, our lives
would be characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We would be free.
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