Loving the Father

Matthew 22: 37

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

Mark 12:30

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.

Luke 10: 27

So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”

I have heard so many times that the New Testament has changed the whole meaning of what it means to love God. All too often I hear people say, we no longer have to keep any of the Mosaic Law because Jesus gave us a new law, which is to love God and to love our neighbor. That is all we must do, just have love. Is this idea a New Testament idea?  I agree, that we must do these things, but my response is always as follows, how? How do we love the Father? What does loving the Father look like? It seems that the opposition already knows the answer because I am always met with first a dodging of the question itself, and second a quote along the lines of the Jesus is the new law, we don’t need to keep the Old Law. I guess my biggest issue is that my question is never answered by anyone that claims that we only need to love the Father. Let’s start with the question, is loving the father and our neighbor strictly a New Testament idea.

Leviticus 19: 18

You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19: 34

The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 6:5

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

It would seem that Yeshua (Jesus) was quoting from the Law when He stated these concepts. It is quite obvious that this is not a New Testament idea, but rather one that extends throughout history back to the time of Moses Himself, if not even before that.

Now, for the bigger issue. How does the Father tell us we should love Him? What does He say it should look like? I mean, after all, isn’t that what we need to care about? Should we ignore the love language of the Father and come up with our own ways to “love” Him? Here are a few verses of Scripture that explain to us, what loving the Father should look like.

Deuteronomy 10: 12

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

Deuteronomy 11: 1, 13, 22

“Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always.

 ‘And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,

 “For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him—

Deuteronomy 19: 9

and if you keep all these commandments and do them, which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and to walk always in His ways, then you shall add three more cities for yourself besides these three,

Deuteronomy 30: 16, 20

in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.

that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

Joshua 22:5

But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Nehemiah 1:5

And I said: “I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments,  

As is shown in all eight of these verses, to love God, the Father, is always associated with keeping His commands. There is absolutely no way around it. To love God, is to keep His commands, it is really that simple. But that is not all, there is one more verse that I would like to point out that states this very thing, and it is found in the New Testament. Unfortunately, it is purposefully overlooked or twisted in order that it means something different because dispensationalists cannot bring themselves to see the true meaning of Loving the Father.

1 John 5: 3

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

Im not sure how it can get any simpler than this. Not only can we see what YHWH wants from us in terms of love throughout the Old Testament, but it is written right here in the New Testament as well. It takes an inexperienced believer in the Word, the WHOLE Word that is, to twist Paul’s writings to claim that he did not preach keeping the Torah. Even Peter has this to say about Paul…

2 Peter 3: 14-16

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

If Peter is directly stating that Paul’s teachings are difficult for those that do not know the scriptures, and we know that only thing considered scripture during that era, then how can modern day believers in Christ claim that they understand Paul when they make little to no attempt to understand the scripture, as in the Old Testament? This makes no sense, and this is why the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Holy Spirit have to be thrown out or completely ignored or twisted to mean something other than what the Prophet Ezekiel says is its purpose. That is a topic from another blog.