(How to) Love God

A Reflection on the Second Reading for March 12th, 2023:
Third Sunday of Lent

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Romans
5.1-2, 5-8

Brothers and sisters: Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Romans Chapter 5 says: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us…. God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us.”

I am on holiday in New York, staying in the home of a Jewish friend. Each time I enter his home, my eyes are drawn to a metal cylinder to the right of the front door, about 1/3 of the way down from the lintel. This is a mezuzah. And inside this long, thin tube is a holy scroll that contains two paragraphs from Deuteronomy, one of the books of the Torah, or, as Christians call it, the Old Testament. The paragraphs command:  Love God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. Jewish households place a mezuzah on the frame of their front door and those of their interior doors as a sign and reminder of God’s faithful promises and of our love, commitment and willingness to be faithful in return. It is customary for observant Jews to touch their fingers to the mezuzah as they pass through the doorway and then to touch their fingers to their lips.

I was thinking today of how beautifully Deuteronomy and Romans work together. While Deuteronomy commands us to love God, Romans instructs us in how to love God, and that is as God loves us. Romans says: God proved His love for us in that, while we still were sinners, Christ died for us. This is what it means to love (as Deuteronomy says) with all our soul and all our strength. It means to love as Christ loves.

Although most of us will never be called to die for our love of God, we certainly are called to sacrifice our lives — to give over all that we are, freely and without holding back — as Christ did.

Our plans, our decisions, our ways of interacting with the world — all of these rightly belong to God. 

This kind of surrender is hard. But Romans promises us that, if we make that sacrifice, we will receive peace and hope and grace and love. 

Each time I leave this home and return to it, I am grateful to be reminded that God is faithful. That He leads wherever He asks us to go. And that life is best lived when it is placed in God’s hands.




Donna Davis

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