First of all, the first commandment has an entirely vertical focus: God is to be the object of love first. Our best, finest, and most sacrificial love is to be His first. This is critical. Our love is an offering of praise and adoration of who He is and what He has done. It is a reverent state of awe at Him. It is a quiet, active waiting for Him to speak for us to move and then we act obedient to His will for us. God first love equals the truest worship.
Strangely enough, the challenge to this uncomplicated, first-fruit offering of love to God is actually the second commandment. Some people are so engaged in social causes, political agendas, cultural dilemmas, endless committees, and volunteer duties that they are actually distracted from loving God. Obviously, these passions and pursuits are not evil in and of themselves; however, when they sidetrack the believer from giving their first-fruits to God, they can act as idols that lead astray.
At this point, distinguishing between God and neighbor may be useful. There should be a primary and secondary distinction for loving God to be understood within the first commandment and it implicitly refers to the body of Christ, i.e. believers. Loving God proper, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be first tier, first commandment love and deserves primacy in worship, love, and offering. Loving God's body of believers, people who have confessed belief in Christ as the true Son of God and sin's only salvation, would be second tier, first commandment love. This means that we are to love God first, His body second, and our neighbors third.
As we who are believers are adopted into sons and daughters of God through our Lord Jesus, then, essentially, we all live in God's house. Therefore, anyone described as a neighbor, practically speaking, lives outside of the house of God, i.e. non-believers. Again, this should not diminish our love for the body of Christ (believers: members of God's family through Christ) or for our neighbors (nonbelievers: people who are not part of God's family). Rather, our locus of love should always be love for God, and love focused on any one who is not God is informed and infused by that God-first love. This should also press a sense of urgency into us to love everyone more because we are doing it as an act of obedience, worship, and love to God.
The other challenge to the first commandment is the degree of love that it asks of us: with all your heart, soul, and mind. All of it. This is no easy charge and requires the Holy Spirit. Only in and by the Holy Spirit's work are we capable of ever fulfilling the first commandment in the way God desires and requires. 'All of us' means that we decide to give it to Him and we act on that decision. The reality is that God has given each of us all of the love we possess. Therefore, when we determine to give it back to Him, more than anything, we are acknowledging Him in thankfulness and reverence. It is true worship.
Love can show itself as many different things, prayer, service, etc. However, the overwhelming purpose of any action should be to love, to honor, and to praise God. This is the challenge of the first and greatest commandment. Luckily, the difficulty is not meant to weigh us down with guilt at our inability to fulfill it to its fullest; rather, the difficulty inherent to the commandment is meant to spur us on to greater levels of devotion as we pursue Him, to eagerly seek after Him.
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