FIVE PRIMAL VIRTUES OF LOVE

The First and Second Commandments of our Lord sum up, encompass... capture in essence all of the O.T. Law and the Prophets, so surely they suffice as a good definition of the purpose driven life! Imbedded in our Lord’s First Commandment is four love virtues: We are to love God with all our heart... with compassion, with all our soul... with wonder, with our mind... with curiosity, and with all our strength... with energy. These primal virtues (coined by Mark Batterson) of compassion, wonder, curiosity and energy, are at the heart of who we were created to be as humans, and are lost virtues among many saints. We need to learn what it means to love God with every fiber of our being, developing a deeper and richer understanding of the First Commandment. However, it is all too easy to slip into the veneer of heroic individualism, in which the fundamental relational focus is between an individual and God, effectively splitting off what Jesus joined together, the Second Commandment, “loving your neighbor as you love yourself” from the First Commandment to “love the Lord your God.” (Mk. 12:30-31; Lk. 10:27) Being great at the First Commandment is important but what God wants is the natural out flowing of the First Commandment through the Second Commandment, that we demonstrate our love for God by “considering others better than ourselves” (Phil. 2: 3) and imitate Christ by pouring ourselves out in love for our spiritual brothers and sisters, neighbors and all whom God’s providence brings into contact. What many saints miss, fall short of, or outright ignore is the all important fifth primal virtue of “selfless love” imbedded in the Second Commandment: To love your neighbor as you love yourself. “All important”??? Yes, all important! “He who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, Whom he has not seen. (1 Jn. 4:20 Amp; ref. 1 Jn. 3:17; Lk. 10:27-37) Now this is where the rubber hits the road for we love to love, pamper and take good care of our Self... don’t we! This is sort of a modified Golden Rule: Do unto others as you do unto your Self... Ouch! God’s agape love is compassionate, self sacrificing, outwardly directed love, love that gives more than it takes... selfless love. What we need most today, in a world where individualism is as essential, common and unquestioned as the air we breathe, is not a reformation rooted primarily in personal character promoting more individualism... the First Commandment in isolation,  but an ecclesiological reformation in which we understand anew that God is calling on His Bride to embody His agape love... embody His Second Commandment by sacrificially loving and caring for others... be they family, spiritual kin, neighbors, friends, or total strangers. Only in this way can we demonstrate our love for our Lord... by our selfless love for others...

THEY WILL KNOW 
WE ARE CHRISTIANS 
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