For the past few weeks, I’ve been attempting to reflect on Matthew 22:37. I’ve attempted to answer the questions “What is love?” and “Who are you to love?” Now, I’m going to attempt to answer the question “How we are to love?”

The natural temptation at this point would be to reflect on how to love the Lord with our hearts, and then to think about how to love the Lord with our souls, and then to meditate on how we can love God with our minds. There is no doubt value in pursuing such a meditation; however, what strikes me as most glaring in Matthew 22:37 is that thrice repeated word “all.” Is it possible that the greater point is that we are to love God with all that we have and are? Surely loving God in this way will encompass loving God with all of our emotions (heart), worship (soul), and intelligence (mind).

Matthew 22:37 is a challenge to us all, for we know that our love is unlike our Lord’s love. Our love flickers and fades, and then it is rejuvenated and restored. The cycle then repeats. We wish it weren’t so, but sadly too often it is. With an appropriate awareness of our sin in this regard, we can give praise to God for Christ, who at every point loved the Lord God with all that he had – with all of his heart, soul, and mind. Christ never failed to love in this way.

This Christ did for us, and still he calls us to follow in his way. We follow in his way not as men and women condemned by this command, but as men and women who have been set free to obey this command by the power of the Spirit in gratitude for Christ. We can lean into loving God with all that we have, for we have all we need in Christ.