Love God Above All Else
There's a profound truth woven throughout Scripture that challenges every aspect of how we live: God demands our supreme love. Not partial devotion. Not compartmentalized affection. Not leftovers after we've given our best to everything else. Supreme, undivided, wholehearted love.
The Ancient Call to Undivided Loyalty
In Deuteronomy 6:4-5, we encounter what Jewish tradition calls the Shema—a declaration that has echoed through millennia: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."
This wasn't a gentle suggestion offered to the Israelites as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. It was a command—direct, unambiguous, and absolute.
The context makes this even more striking. Israel emerged from Egypt, a land drowning in polytheism, where people worshiped countless gods carved from wood and stone. They were heading toward Canaan, where the inhabitants bowed before idols of their own imagination. What separated God's people from these nations wasn't just monotheism—it was the recognition that the one true God who created heaven and earth deserved complete devotion.
The prophet Isaiah captured God's bewilderment at idol worship with biting irony: people would chop down a tree, carve part of it into a god to worship, and use the rest for firewood. The absurdity reveals a deeper truth—anything we elevate to God's rightful place in our lives is equally foolish.
The Triune God and Total Devotion
Understanding that we serve a triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons in perfect unity as one God, helps us grasp why divided loyalty is impossible. God's nature is undivided unity. He alone is worthy of worship. Therefore, our response must be undivided loyalty.
The first of the Ten Commandments establishes this foundation: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:2-3).
Nothing—absolutely nothing—should occupy the first place in our lives except God. Jesus reinforced this when He taught, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
Confronting Our Modern Idols
Here's where this ancient command becomes uncomfortably contemporary: anything we put ahead of God, no matter how good or innocent it seems, becomes an idol.
What occupies your first thoughts in the morning? Is it gratitude to the God who sustained you through the night and granted you another day? Or is it the football game you don't want to miss? The weather conditions for your planned activities? Your social media notifications?
The Gospels repeatedly show us Jesus rising early to spend time with His Father. Martin Luther famously said he had so much to do each day that he had to spend an hour in prayer just to accomplish it all. The inversion of our priorities becomes clear when we compare our patterns to these examples.
This doesn't mean hobbies, sports, family time, or work are inherently wrong. It means they must never displace God from His rightful position as the supreme love of our lives.
Jesus Confirms the Command
When a lawyer tested Jesus by asking which commandment was greatest, Jesus didn't hesitate. He quoted the Shema: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment" (Matthew 22:37-38).
Then He added a second: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And He concluded that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Jesus was summarizing the entire Old Testament—everything the prophets taught, everything contained in God's law—into these twin pillars: supreme love for God and genuine love for others.
The Apostle Paul echoed this when he wrote, "As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10). Our love for God naturally overflows into love for our neighbors, even the difficult ones.
The Cost of Discipleship
Jesus made the stakes crystal clear: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37).
This isn't a call to neglect family—Scripture commands us to honor and care for them. But it is a call to recognize that even our deepest human relationships cannot compete with our devotion to Christ. If we love anyone or anything more than God, we're not worthy to be His disciples.
That's a hard truth. It cuts deep. But it also reveals the incomparable value of knowing Christ.
The Pearl of Great Price
Jesus illustrated this value through two brief parables in Matthew 13. In one, a man discovers treasure hidden in a field and joyfully sells everything he owns to buy that field. In another, a merchant finds a pearl of such surpassing value that he liquidates his entire inventory to purchase it.
Imagine the neighbor's reaction: "You're selling everything for that field? Are you crazy? There's nothing special about it!"
But when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the true value of the kingdom of heaven, when we genuinely understand what it means to have eternal life with Christ, we recognize it's worth more than everything else combined.
John Piper poses a penetrating question: If heaven contained everything the Bible describes—streets of gold, gates of pearl, walls of jasper—but Christ wasn't there, would you still want to go?
The streets of gold are just fringe benefits. The supreme treasure is Christ Himself.
Paul's Radical Perspective
The Apostle Paul embodied this truth powerfully. Writing to the Philippians, he catalogued his impressive religious credentials—circumcised on the eighth day, from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee trained under Gamaliel, zealous and blameless according to the law.
Then he declared, "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:7-8).
The Greek word translated "rubbish" is actually much stronger—it means excrement. Paul considered his achievements, accolades, and advantages as worthless garbage compared to knowing Christ.
This wasn't theoretical. Paul endured beatings, stonings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and constant danger. He could remove his shirt and show the scars proving his devotion. Yet he called these afflictions "light and momentary" compared to the glory of knowing Christ.
The Challenge Before Us
C.S. Lewis captured our tendency toward misplaced satisfaction: "We are far too easily pleased." We're like children content making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine the holiday at the sea being offered to us.
We're distracted by shiny objects, the latest trends, temporary pleasures—mud pies—when the infinite joy of knowing God awaits.
Three truths emerge clearly:
First, loving God is not optional—it's commanded. The command is to love Him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
Second, anything you put before God is an idol. Your job, hobbies, entertainment, even family—if they occupy God's rightful place, they're idols.
Third, we must love Jesus above everything in life. This includes our careers, our pastimes, and our closest relationships.
A Prayer for Transformation
King David's prayer in Psalm 51 offers a path forward: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me... Restore to me the joy of your salvation."
This is the ongoing work of the Christian life—allowing God to create clean hearts within us, renewing our commitment, restoring the joy of knowing Him as our greatest treasure.
The journey isn't always easy. We're not sponges that instantly absorb truth—we're often more like rocks that require time for truth to penetrate. But God is faithful to complete the work He begins in us.
The question isn't whether we've arrived at perfect devotion. The question is whether we're willing to work on it, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He reorders our loves and realigns our priorities.
Supreme love for God isn't just the greatest commandment—it's the foundation for everything else in the Christian life. When we get this right, everything else falls into proper place.
The Ancient Call to Undivided Loyalty
In Deuteronomy 6:4-5, we encounter what Jewish tradition calls the Shema—a declaration that has echoed through millennia: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."
This wasn't a gentle suggestion offered to the Israelites as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. It was a command—direct, unambiguous, and absolute.
The context makes this even more striking. Israel emerged from Egypt, a land drowning in polytheism, where people worshiped countless gods carved from wood and stone. They were heading toward Canaan, where the inhabitants bowed before idols of their own imagination. What separated God's people from these nations wasn't just monotheism—it was the recognition that the one true God who created heaven and earth deserved complete devotion.
The prophet Isaiah captured God's bewilderment at idol worship with biting irony: people would chop down a tree, carve part of it into a god to worship, and use the rest for firewood. The absurdity reveals a deeper truth—anything we elevate to God's rightful place in our lives is equally foolish.
The Triune God and Total Devotion
Understanding that we serve a triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons in perfect unity as one God, helps us grasp why divided loyalty is impossible. God's nature is undivided unity. He alone is worthy of worship. Therefore, our response must be undivided loyalty.
The first of the Ten Commandments establishes this foundation: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:2-3).
Nothing—absolutely nothing—should occupy the first place in our lives except God. Jesus reinforced this when He taught, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
Confronting Our Modern Idols
Here's where this ancient command becomes uncomfortably contemporary: anything we put ahead of God, no matter how good or innocent it seems, becomes an idol.
What occupies your first thoughts in the morning? Is it gratitude to the God who sustained you through the night and granted you another day? Or is it the football game you don't want to miss? The weather conditions for your planned activities? Your social media notifications?
The Gospels repeatedly show us Jesus rising early to spend time with His Father. Martin Luther famously said he had so much to do each day that he had to spend an hour in prayer just to accomplish it all. The inversion of our priorities becomes clear when we compare our patterns to these examples.
This doesn't mean hobbies, sports, family time, or work are inherently wrong. It means they must never displace God from His rightful position as the supreme love of our lives.
Jesus Confirms the Command
When a lawyer tested Jesus by asking which commandment was greatest, Jesus didn't hesitate. He quoted the Shema: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment" (Matthew 22:37-38).
Then He added a second: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And He concluded that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Jesus was summarizing the entire Old Testament—everything the prophets taught, everything contained in God's law—into these twin pillars: supreme love for God and genuine love for others.
The Apostle Paul echoed this when he wrote, "As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10). Our love for God naturally overflows into love for our neighbors, even the difficult ones.
The Cost of Discipleship
Jesus made the stakes crystal clear: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37).
This isn't a call to neglect family—Scripture commands us to honor and care for them. But it is a call to recognize that even our deepest human relationships cannot compete with our devotion to Christ. If we love anyone or anything more than God, we're not worthy to be His disciples.
That's a hard truth. It cuts deep. But it also reveals the incomparable value of knowing Christ.
The Pearl of Great Price
Jesus illustrated this value through two brief parables in Matthew 13. In one, a man discovers treasure hidden in a field and joyfully sells everything he owns to buy that field. In another, a merchant finds a pearl of such surpassing value that he liquidates his entire inventory to purchase it.
Imagine the neighbor's reaction: "You're selling everything for that field? Are you crazy? There's nothing special about it!"
But when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the true value of the kingdom of heaven, when we genuinely understand what it means to have eternal life with Christ, we recognize it's worth more than everything else combined.
John Piper poses a penetrating question: If heaven contained everything the Bible describes—streets of gold, gates of pearl, walls of jasper—but Christ wasn't there, would you still want to go?
The streets of gold are just fringe benefits. The supreme treasure is Christ Himself.
Paul's Radical Perspective
The Apostle Paul embodied this truth powerfully. Writing to the Philippians, he catalogued his impressive religious credentials—circumcised on the eighth day, from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee trained under Gamaliel, zealous and blameless according to the law.
Then he declared, "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:7-8).
The Greek word translated "rubbish" is actually much stronger—it means excrement. Paul considered his achievements, accolades, and advantages as worthless garbage compared to knowing Christ.
This wasn't theoretical. Paul endured beatings, stonings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and constant danger. He could remove his shirt and show the scars proving his devotion. Yet he called these afflictions "light and momentary" compared to the glory of knowing Christ.
The Challenge Before Us
C.S. Lewis captured our tendency toward misplaced satisfaction: "We are far too easily pleased." We're like children content making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine the holiday at the sea being offered to us.
We're distracted by shiny objects, the latest trends, temporary pleasures—mud pies—when the infinite joy of knowing God awaits.
Three truths emerge clearly:
First, loving God is not optional—it's commanded. The command is to love Him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
Second, anything you put before God is an idol. Your job, hobbies, entertainment, even family—if they occupy God's rightful place, they're idols.
Third, we must love Jesus above everything in life. This includes our careers, our pastimes, and our closest relationships.
A Prayer for Transformation
King David's prayer in Psalm 51 offers a path forward: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me... Restore to me the joy of your salvation."
This is the ongoing work of the Christian life—allowing God to create clean hearts within us, renewing our commitment, restoring the joy of knowing Him as our greatest treasure.
The journey isn't always easy. We're not sponges that instantly absorb truth—we're often more like rocks that require time for truth to penetrate. But God is faithful to complete the work He begins in us.
The question isn't whether we've arrived at perfect devotion. The question is whether we're willing to work on it, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He reorders our loves and realigns our priorities.
Supreme love for God isn't just the greatest commandment—it's the foundation for everything else in the Christian life. When we get this right, everything else falls into proper place.
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