The God Guarantee: By Jack AlexanderSample

The Expansion of Love

Matthew 22:34-40

In these devotionals we’ve already seen the importance of consecrating ourselves to God. We’ve learned about exercising our faith and accepting those risks God is calling us to. We’ve been reminded that temptations will continue to come our way even as we are making progress toward trust in God’s provision. Now we’re coming to a topic that is really the height of the transformation we undergo in the journey from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. It’s all about love.

The Old Testament originally put forward 613 laws that God’s people were supposed to follow. Moses summarized and narrowed those down to the Ten Commandments. The prophet Micah reduced those to three commands: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God (see Mic. 6:8). And then, as Jesus brought us out of the law and into the new covenant, he reduced them to two: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. “All the Law and the Prophets,” Jesus said, “hang on these two commandments” (Matt. 22:40).

Dozens of books and thousands of sermons have been written on Jesus’s words about the two greatest commandments—and on every nuance of meaning Jesus put into those words. Yet recently I realized something I’d never noticed before: both of Jesus’s supreme commands are about continuously expanding and building our capacity to love. Just as athletes’ physical capacity grows as they train regularly, our capacity to love grows as we love. There is no limit to how much God calls us to love.

We are called to love God with all our being, to fill ourselves completely with our dedication to him. And we are told to see others as we see ourselves—that is, to see others as just as central to our experience as we are. The more we put others—their needs, feelings, and desires—at the same level of importance we put ourselves, the more God expands our capacity, deepening our connection to him.

This topic of love is so important that I’ll have more to say about it in our final devotional together.

Think about what your words and actions reveal about the state of your love for God and your love for other people. Then ask God to help you grow in love.