One of the recent trending love songs is “Risk It All” by Bruno Mars. The tune is catchy, and the lyrics are passionate.
Say you want the moon, watch me learn to fly,
ain’t no mountain you could point to
I wouldn’t climb.
It’s crazy, but it’s true,
there’s nothing I won’t do,
I’d risk it all for you.
Love is often associated with sentimental, spontaneous feelings. But God commands us to love in Scripture. How can someone command us to love? Does it not run contrary to the common definition of love?
We choose who we love, how we love, and when we love. And yet God defines and reveals love to us.
In the gospels, a scribe comes to Jesus with a question: “Which commandment is the most important of all?” (Mark 12:28). Jesus answers the scribe by quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12:29-30).”
God Is One
The scribe wanted to know which commandment was the greatest. But Jesus begins by pointing to who God is. The foundation of true obedience is knowing God rightly.
“The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mark 12:29). This declaration stood against the beliefs of people back then and even today. Scripture teaches us that there is one God, not many (Deut. 32:39, Isa. 45:5).
It sounds very narrow and intolerant in today’s culture, where truth is relative to each individual and experience. But Scripture does not allow us to invent our own truth about God. He reveals his nature to us.
God is one; he is unique and exclusive. We believe in one God existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This God, who is one, has no equal or rival. And this forms the basis for our worship and obedience.
Love God Supremely
If God truly is one, then he deserves all worship, honour, and praise. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).
And God determines how we express this love. This love permeates every area of our lives and transforms every part of our being (Deut. 6:5).
To love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is to love God with our whole being. Loving God with all our hearts assumes that this love is not out of duty but out of delight. To love God is to cherish and treasure him above all. It is to obey his commandments (John 14:15).
We love God supremely with our whole being. Our minds are to be shaped by his truth. Our hearts are to treasure him above all. And our strength is to be spent in joyful obedience.
Love Your Neighbour Sincerely
Jesus adds a second command from Leviticus 19:18. He says, “The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (Mark 12:31).
Love for God and love for neighbour cannot be separated. The apostle John later writes: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20).
Jesus does not ask us to love our neighbour with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That would be idolatry. Only God deserves such supreme love.
We are to love our neighbours as ourselves.
It sounds like modern self-love philosophy. Is Jesus saying that we will love our neighbour only when we learn to love ourselves? No. On the contrary, the Bible assumes that we already love ourselves too much. We are self-centred and selfish individuals who naturally protect, prioritise, and serve ourselves.
To love your neighbour sincerely means seeking their good genuinely, sacrificially, and consistently—not only when it is convenient or emotionally rewarding. Sincere love is not performative or selective. It is commanded by God and flows from a heart that loves God above all.
And the neighbour is not an abstract person somewhere far away, but the people right in front of you: your spouse, child, roommate, friend, coworker, church member, and those you meet on a daily basis. In the context of Jesus’s response, it includes the people who are least like us and whom we may not like.
God Defines What Love Looks Like
Biblical love is not merely emotional affection. It is expressed by obeying the law (John 14:15). The law teaches us what it means to love God and to love our neighbour.
In the Ten Commandments, the first four commandments show us how to love God supremely, and the next six commandments show us how to love our neighbour sincerely (Ex. 20:1-17).
Each commandment is not just a prohibition but a call to pursue love. “Do not murder” means more than avoiding violence; it means pursuing forgiveness and reconciliation (Matt. 5:21-24). The command “Do not steal” means more than avoiding theft; it means living a life of generosity (Eph. 4:28). “Do not commit adultery” means treating your spouse with respect, faithfulness, and kindness (Matt. 5:27-28).
We do not make up our own strategy to love God and our neighbour. God defines how we love through his law.
Jesus Fulfils the Law as Our Substitute
The scribe understood what Jesus really meant. Jesus responds to him by saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34).
What did the scribe understand? He repeats what Jesus says but adds his own application. He says that to love like this is much more than offerings and sacrifices (Mark 12:33).
The way into the kingdom is to recognise that we cannot love God supremely and we do not love our neighbour sincerely (Rom. 3:23). Entry into the kingdom is not on the basis of our sacrifices but the sacrifice of another.
Jesus alone loved the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Every moment of his life was marked by perfect obedience and delight in the Father (John 14:31). He alone loved his neighbour sincerely, sacrificially, and completely (Matt. 5:17).
Where we are powerless, Jesus succeeded.
Yet Jesus did not merely come as our example. He came as our substitute.
At the cross, Jesus carried our failure to love. He bore our pride, selfishness, anger, greed, lust, and lovelessness (1 Pet. 2:24). The judgment our sin deserved fell on him (1 Pet. 3:18). And through his perfect obedience, he secured the righteousness we could never achieve ourselves.
Only when we see how deeply Jesus has loved us can we begin to love God and others rightly.
Christian love is not manufactured. It is receiving the supernatural love of Christ again and again until it reshapes us from the inside out. We acknowledge and repent of our lack of love and receive and rejoice in our Savior’s love (1 John 3:1). This is a lifelong rhythm: beholding and treasuring Christ every moment of our lives that shapes our hearts to love him supremely and love others sincerely.
