This will be brief and simple.
We are given 2 commands in scripture that when obeyed sum up the rest of the commands of scripture. They are as follows:
1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
How do sinful people, dead in their trespasses obey such commands? We must be born again.
“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born againb he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:3)
Prepare yourself for a few long run-on sentences! I wrote them as I would speak them.
When you see God AS HE IS, the Supreme Creator of the Universe, perfect in holiness and justice, and worthy of all praise, when you see THAT God, who had and has every right to destroy you and I, but instead came to earth to bear your sins and mine and received the penalty for those sins so that we could be justly forgiven, and freed from sin to enjoy him forever, it is IMPOSSIBLE not to love him. When you see and savor this wonderful God and you see the world that does not give him the praise due his name, and you know that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, it is impossible not to have compassion on the lost and love them, desiring their joy in God, which is his glory. Here passion for the God’s glory and love for the lost are ONE passion. This is the proper motivation of all missions and evangelism. Everythinng starts and ends with the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So what should be our greatest prayer? It’s pretty simple actually.
Let us pray to him saying “Lord, would you open the eyes of our hearts to see you as you are; supremely precious, wonderful, beautiful, splendid, holy, awesome, perfect, and worthy of praise!”
Love for God and for people flows from seeing and savoring our Lord Jesus Christ who makes us righteous through his death and ressurection and gives himself to us freely!
