Where True Life Is Found (Matthew 22:37–39)

And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
– Matthew 22:37–39

You may have heard these verses before, and if we’re not careful, they can become almost commonplace to us. But these are strong words from Jesus. The great commandment: the first commandment of all the commands of God all over his Word that lead us to life. This is the greatest, and this is the first one. Everything flows from it.

Matthew 22:37 teaches us that loving God above all else is the foundation of everything in our lives.

“Love the Lord your God.” What a picture that you and I are invited into a love relationship with God; that this is what God has made us for – to experience life in love relationship with Him, not just in going through the motions of religion or the motions of everyday life in this world.

True life is found in love relationship with God. And then, flowing from that, a supernatural love for others: a selfless, sacrificial love for others. This is the way to live, which means these commandments should be at top of mind for us continually in our lives.

When you think about your day today or tomorrow, your great and first priority is to love God, to walk in love relationship with God with all you have, and to sacrificially love the people around you. That changes your day; that changes the course of your life; that changes what you value in life.

Matthew 22:39 teaches us that our love for God overflows into selfless, sacrificial love for others.

I think about the two things I pray continually over my children’s future spouses, if the Lord leads them to marriage. I pray, I plead that they will marry a husband or a wife who loves God wholeheartedly and loves them and others selflessly. And I’m just convinced that if that is true, then that will lead to good marriage; that will lead to life for their spouse, for them.

But that’s just one example. This is life for us today. And I just want to encourage you in a fresh way with these two verses with the great and first commandment, and the second that flows from it, to let these commands drive everything about your life, because they are fundamentally the way to experience life today and every day.

This verse encourages us to let the Word of God shape our priorities.

So, God, we pray that you would help us to obey these commandments. And we thank you, God, for these commandments. We praise you for creating us to know you and walk with you and enjoy you and experience love relationship with you. God, I want to experience that in greater ways today than I ever have before. And I want to pray that over my brothers and sisters, that we would experience love relationship with you in deeper ways today than we did yesterday, and in deeper ways tomorrow than we do today.

God, help us to love you with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength as an overflow of your supernatural, life-changing, saving, steadfast, faithful love for us. And, God, we pray that you would help us to, as the overflow of your love in us, for us, love relationship with you that you would help us to serve others today, sacrifice for others today, put others’ interests above our own today; to love others selflessly today. God, we pray that these two commandments would mark, would characterize our lives above everything else on a daily basis.

And, God, we pray that you would use us our lives to lead others into love relationship with you, not to lead others into religious motion or just believing certain things, but to lead others to experience your love and walk in love for you. We pray that over the people around us: help us to love them enough to share the good news of your love with them.

Prayer for the Toukaleur Fulani People

And, God, we pray for the spread of your love to the ends of the earth. We pray specifically today, we intercede for the Toukaleur Fulani people, for 771,000 Muslim men, women, and children in this Pulaar-speaking people group. God, please, please, please cause the Toukaleur Fulani people to be reached with your love. Bless all those who are working for the spread of the gospel, including our brothers and sisters who live there. From there, God, we pray for the spread of your love to the Toukaleur Fulani in Senegal, that they might experience life in love relationship with you.

Oh, God, we pray all this according to your Word, which we love, in Matthew 22:37–39. In Jesus’ name. Amen.