We serve a great and majestic God, a God worthy of the tribute he commands. But as you know, there’s quite a difference between fulfilling a requirement and liking it.

Moses certainly knew this. In his great “farewell sermon” to the people of Israel, wandering on foot and in heart, he pressed them both to keep the law of God and to desire the God of the law: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4-5). When our Lord was tested by his adversaries, he summarized the law, and with it the full scope of his personal obedience, by pointing to this text (see Matt. 22:34-40). Our obedience begins in the affections because, as Paul explains, love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8-10). Pure love for God is the vital motivation and the only means by which our duty may be done.

So that we might love our God, we must concentrate on his love for us. God is love (1 John 4:16)! Three times Moses exalts God as the Lord (YHWH): his glorious name-in-relationship, the covenantal name that declares his enduring love and affection for us. He is God, the Creator and Ruler of all things, but he is not simply God – he is our God. Without this revelation, what fool would have the audacity to claim the Lord of the universe for himself? But God himself has said it, as a joyful groom swearing love to his bride: I am yours. And God is one: that is, one in essence (though three in person) and as such unique unto himself – an absolute, independent, triune Being, whose love is not conditioned by our failures or successes of obedience.

Such love is incomparable. We don’t deserve it. And this love is in Jesus, who was given to us out of the infinite, ever-replenishing fullness of divine love. While we were still sinners, enemies of God, Christ died to make us his friends. There could be no greater love.

What must we do? Hear, O church! In awe of such grace, would you measure your affection? Such love is yours: can you prefer any other to your God? Love must answer to love: we begin to love him, the source and unceasing fountain of all good, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Our love must be like his. He sweetly calls us to forsake all others, to love him with such intensity of focus and sincerity of interest that all other loves are but silhouettes before the radiant Object of our desire. All our heart, all our soul, all our might: nothing left over, a consuming exclusivity – this is the demand of divine love, with all the inward depths of desire, of life, and of will channeled into the pursuit and wondering discovery of the God who is love.

This is true stewardship. Our whole life, every faculty of soul and body, must be ordered and directed into the love of God. Nothing can remain unaltered: time, relationships, resources, goals – all must conform to the greater aim of love. We present our tithes and offerings to the Lord, yet they are not enough: with them, we must give our very lives.

Your God is worthy to receive such sacrifices: he is love, unending, ever flowing. To obey him with love is no hardship, because we give ourselves to one who is altogether lovely. Hear, O church! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might!