It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the greatest act we can do in life is to love God with our whole being. That is, to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Loving God above all things, with all the power of our human abilities, is the constant goal we must strive for in life.
When we love God fully, we can't help but love everyone else; even the "neighbors" who make our lives difficult by hoarding toilet paper and bottled water and hand sanitizer, and whatever else we all need to keep our families protected and safe from an unwanted and deadly virus.
Jesus never said that we have to enjoy doing good to our enemies. He didn't like being whipped and manhandled and jabbed and mocked and crucified, but that didn't stop Him from offering Himself as a sacrifice for you and for me and for the people we dislike. Since He did that for us, can we at least do small deeds of goodness that are no fun to do?
Mercy means choosing to do good whether we like it or not. To love with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength means choosing to let nothing prevent us from doing good, no matter how we might actually feel about it.
Love isn’t always a nice feeling. But love is always a choice that brings us into unity with the One Who Is Love.
On our journey of holiness we stumble in our treatment of others and sin. Then, when we ask God to forgive our iniquity, we blossom spiritually like beautiful lilies and we bear good fruit. (Hosea 14:2-10)
However, we’re not capable of loving others more than we love ourselves. Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." Loving ourselves and doing good for our own selves (to get our needs met) gives us the confidence and freedom that we need in order to do good to others, especially when life is difficult. During our current health crisis in the world, this is becoming more and more important!
Low self-esteem is not God's plan for us. Let Him heal our wounded heart. Let Him correct bad social media posts or comments that have cut us down. Let Him point out our goodness and giftedness. We should spend time observing ourselves through His eyes, paying attention to how much He appreciates us. He sees our goodness even when we can't.
In other words, God loves us with His whole heart, His whole soul, His whole mind, and His whole strength! Does He deserve any less from us?
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