Love Beyond Words

I realized something surprising today. Since January 2016 I have published about 100 posts. If you have been reading these posts you know that I use a lot of words. I guess my average word count for these 100 posts is about 2500. If my math is correct, that means that in 2016 I have published about a quarter of a million words! That’s a lot of words.

I have written about repentance, the Kingdom of God, sin, God is love, the wrath of God, and a lot of other Biblical principles. I have also shared how God moved in my life, for example, with the recent post “A Grief, A Mountain, A MIracle — and A Banana”.

Earlier today, while driving to a meeting, I felt a conviction come over me. I sensed in my spirit God say “John, all those words about repentance, the Kingdom, the Christian’s purpose, etc. can all be collapsed down to just this — Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength (Matthew 22: 37; Luke 10: 27 NIV)”.

My first reaction was, “do you mean that all those words were wasted?” To tell you the truth, I didn’t hear a really clear answer to that question at first. But later God pointed out that for the most part I was writing about what He had written in Scripture — words are important to Him. I took that to mean, “No, the words were not wasted. I am using them”. What I felt God say was “remember that my command to love God includes and focuses those words, especially when the Church picks my Scripture apart to support this or that theological position and ends up causing division in the Body of Christ”. OK, God.

Take repentance for example. If I am loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, I am not loving the things of the world. If all that I am and all that I have loves God then I am telling Him I am finding all of my value, my acceptance, my life in Him. I was born into the world, at one time I was a sinner finding my value in the things of the world (idolatry), but now I have turned from that ‘thing’ that I worshiped and have surrendered all that I am and all that I have to Jesus. That is the meaning of repentance.

And guess what? If all that I am and all that I have rejects the world’s schemes, that is freedom. And loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength is as good a definition of a man living in the Kingdom of God as any other. And living in the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of the world means I have been ‘born again’.

I have read these words of Jesus many times. It was today, for the first time, that I understood the magnitude of that ‘simple’ (or not so simple) commandment.

But then I had another ‘thought’ that really surprised me. I felt God say, “one of the reasons I want you to love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is because that is how I love you, John. In loving Me that way, I want you to experience (to some degree) how I love you. I love John Van Wagoner, and all of my creation, with all of My heart, with all of My soul, with all of My mind, and with all of My strength”. Isn’t that the message of the cross?

I never thought that way before. But it makes sense. God is love. His entire being — all of His heart, all of His soul, all of mind, and all of His strength — is love. When He loves, He loves with all of who He is. And as Scripture makes clear, God is a Person with personality, emotion, and character. He has a heart, He has a soul, He has a mind, and He certainly is strong. But, unlike us, He is a perfect Person.

There is more. What did Jesus say about loving? “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22: 39 NIV). I like the way Jesus said it in John 13: 34, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (NIV). OK. Jesus loves me with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. And I am called to love others the way He loves me?

I have written many times that the Believer’s purpose ‘in Christ’ is to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world, to take back the territory, push back the darkness, and defeat the power of satan. All, of course, in the power of the Holy Spirit and in partnership with Jesus. Maybe this purpose can be restated: “love your neighbors — who happen to be everyone — with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

Whoa, that is radical, offensive, humbling — it is Jesus.

What do you think? Does this makes sense to you? And no fair saying “it doesn’t make sense because it is too hard.” That is why God has given us the Holy Spirit and a life ‘in Christ’.

See, I can write a post under 1000 words (899 to be exact).

Merry Christmas neighbors around the world,

John