When the religious leaders asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment, He responded, "To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul and mind. And the second is just as important to love thy neighbor as thyself." To love someone with everything you have is to love radically! Why does God ask for that? Because it's the type of love He gives us. He displayed the extremeness of His love for mankind when He sent His beloved Son as the payment for the sins of the world. As Christians we graciously and happily receive His gift, but yet we sometimes struggle to respond in the same manner.
This love life that God has called us to outrageous! It calls for us to love God with every fiber of our being and to love our enemies, the unlovable and those without the ability to love us back just as we would love ourselves. Sounds impossible, doesn't it? It is for a natural man, but according to Romans 5:5, this same love that God shows to us has been placed in our heart by His Holy Spirit. In other words, HE has downloaded the ability to love radically in the hearts of every believer. So the question is no longer, can we love like that, but will we?
This love causes us to give to others even when it hurts or causes our discomfort. It demands that we keep praying, keep reaching out and keep responding the hurts of humanity even when we'd rather just put a good movie in and ignore all the drama. For God, loving radically is not optional, it's a commandment. In 1 John, He tells us that without this love, we don't even belong to Him! How sad it would be to spend your life going to church doing the "right" things only to discover you had neglected what was most important: cultivating and sharing God's radical love.
Matthew 25 tells us how serious love is for God. There are people who stand before Jesus and He tells them that He never knew them. Why? Because when they saw the hungry, they refused to feed them. They saw needs and refused to meet them because they were consumed with meeting their own needs. Jesus tells those people who lived selfishlessly to depart from Him b/c He doesn't know them. In other words, they had no love and you can't have Jesus without having love b/c He is LOVE!
Often when someone challenges us to give up more for God, we are quick to say, "It doesn't take all that", but scripture after scripture tells us that it does indeed take all that! God isn't asking for what we can spare....He's asking for it all!
What's the last radical thing you've done for God? When's the last time you've been out of your comfort zone to respond to the needs of another? When's the last time you shared the gospel with someone who wasn't already saved? No matter what you've been told, these things aren't suggestions from God, but commandments!
"If you love Me, keep my commandments." The greatest commandment is love...are you responding radically with love? I challenge you to pray for a heart to love like God does and for opportunities to respond radically with love to someone daily!
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