Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, St. Matthews Baptist Church

True love releases God’s presence, promise, and power.  This energy flows as we live the Great Commandment.  Jesus showed us how: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with your entire mind and with all your strength.”  From this love we are empowered “to love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:25-37, Mark 12:28-34, Matt. 22:34-40, John 13:34-35).

True love involves the intellect, which is what shapes ideas that in turn form our thoughts.  By mindful love we submit our thought patterns to God, and from this love we unlearn harmful ideas that have shaped sinful thoughts.  An example is the scribe unlearning that “neighbor” only meant good Hebrews and learning that the down-trodden and Samaritans were also neighbors.

True love involves the feeling-self, which is what shapes our values, which in turn forms our emotions.  By feeling-love we yield our value patterns to God and from this love we retrain the pathways by which our emotions travel.  As we love God, we love who and what God has made, and from this love response we desire to love others as God has loved us - with compassion.

True love involves the body, which enfleshes our intellect, feelings and spirit.  Until death our body is inseparably related to our own identity; consequently in John’s account of the Great Commandment, Jesus washed His disciples’ feet.  By this love act He claimed the role of servant.  By physically enacting our love for others as Christ has loved us, we can see God’s presence in others (Matthew 25:31-46).

True love unfolds as we allow our soul, the image of God within us, to lead our mind, our heart, and our body.  Our soul is the spiritual ligament which connects our entire being into God’s all encompassing love, and enables us to love ourselves as we love others.

Seeing what love can do,

Pastor Les Hollon

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
-C.S. Lewis

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church.  For more information about God’s love, St. Matthews Baptist Church, or to contact Dr. Hollon, click over to St. Matthews Baptist Church.

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