Why Loving God and Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself Has Nothing to Do with “Feelings”

As husbands, our role is more important than we realize, and the effects of our influence span wider than we care to think about. In just a few generations, what you do today will be felt by thousands of people, even though your tribe is small right now.

Think about it. It won’t be just your kids, but your kids’ kids, including all the contributions they will make to society. Every person they come in contact with will be touched in some way by what you do today.

That’s why it’s so important to get the small things right. Our thinking, our actions, our view of our Heavenly Father counts. This is not to overwhelm you, the Holy Spirit is here to guide us. But it does urge us to be diligent.

That’s what today’s letter is about.

We have all heard that the greatest two commandments are: “Love God with all your heart, soul, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”

But what does this really mean? And how do we make this part of our lives?

The hijacking of the westernized, modern church machine has changed the meaning of these two instructions so much that they have become meaningless. As a result, our hearts have a tendency to turn cold.

We are told these two commands are based on feelings: “Just love God more!” or “You need to work on your heart posture.” But we are left chasing ghosts that don’t exist.

And when our feelings don’t line up with these two imperatives, we feel shame, guilt, and that something is wrong with us, because our hearts “feel” so numb.

Our church services are designed to bring out deep emotion in hopes that our hearts and minds will follow. But as we sit there in the pews, singing the words, our hearts are not stirred. What is wrong with us? Why do I feel so cold and unmoved?

Other things excite us. Other things bring out our passion. But why not devotional books and the perfectly performed, scripted songs of the Christian music industry?

Because loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself has nothing to do with “feelings.”

So what do these instructions have to do with? They have everything to do with action.

When Yehushua was asked “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?, He answered:

Matthew 22:37–40
37 Yehushua replied: “‘Love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Some people may think Yehushua (Jesus) is making up this answer off the cuff. We know the context is that the Pharisees are testing the Messiah and trying to trap Him. So it makes sense to think Yehushua is answering quickly and off the cuff. But Yehushua is not any man, He is the Word that became flesh. And this is an important distinction.

The Word knows the Word. Yehushua knows the Words that have come directly from the source: YHWH the Eternal. He is not making something up on the spot, He is repeating the very Word that proceeded out of the mouth of YHWH.

If you have a physical Bible you can see the distinction in the text. It’s written in italics, meaning it’s a quotation from Scriptures written 1,500 years earlier.

The group testing Yehushua would have known exactly where this had been written before. As Messiah was answering, the rest of the passage was likely playing silently in their minds.

It would be like us today, at the beginning of a football game, when the anthem begins:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,

You would be able to sing along, because you know it.

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And if the microphone went out, you would continue the melody, because it is seared in your memory.

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the ….............

Could you help but finish the song? In your mind did you hear “BRAVE”?

This is what the pharisees and everyone in earshot was experiencing.

This is what the Pharisees and everyone in earshot was experiencing. Yehushua was quoting from two of the most recognized passages in the Torah: Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

So what was probably playing in their minds as He answered?

The meat and meaning of those two commands. The important stuff that is lost by our current assemblies. The information that brings these instructions to life. The truth of the matter.

When Yehushua quoted Deuteronomy and Leviticus, He wasn’t giving us a pithy saying to meditate on millennia later. He was reminding us of what YHWH our Creator had already told us.

Why was quoting from Deuteronomy so important? Yehushua (Jesus) was quoting the pinnacle statement of the passage, not the beginning of a thought, but its culmination.

Everything in chapters 5 and 6 builds toward this statement in Deuteronomy 6:5. It’s as if He’s saying: “Because I, YHWH, have said everything before, therefore, love Me with all your heart, soul, and strength.”

What preceded this statement? (Read Deuteronomy 5 & 6 for yourself.)

Moses is retelling how YHWH met them at the mountain, made covenant with them, and commanded them to obey all His statutes and judgments. He restates the Ten Commandments. He pleads with them to obey YHWH, to teach their children His ways, and to make obedience their identity.

So when Messiah quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, He was actually saying: Obey YHWH and His commandments, and in doing so, you are loving YHWH with all your heart, soul, and strength.

Messiah wasn’t urging us to have loving feelings toward our Heavenly Father, but urging us to love Him by obeying what He has already said.

And He does the same with the second commandment:

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Messiah was quoting from Leviticus 19:18. Again, not a new idea, but the voice of His Father. The whole passage leading up to this statement is instruction on how to treat your fellow man:

• Do not glean the corners of your field.

• Do not steal.

• Do not deal falsely or lie to one another.

• Do not cheat your neighbor or rob him.

• Do not show partiality.

• Do not put a stumbling block before the blind.

• Do not be a talebearer.

• Do not hate your brother in your heart.

• Do not bear a grudge.

• And much more…

But then comes the culmination: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am YHWH.”

Again, this has nothing to do with feelings. It has everything to do with action and how we treat people in the real world.

Our Heavenly Father is more concerned with how we treat one another and how we obey Him than He is with our feelings and emotions.

Why are you unmoved by the message from most churches today? Because we’ve been told, or it’s been implied, that what matters most is the feeling of love and the emotion of passion, without concern of obedience to Him or not. This is hollow and will lead to death.