Mark 12:29-31

One thing I hope you know is this: we don’t HAVE to love God, we GET to. You see, God could have created us to love Him without giving us a choice. But that’s not real love. You can’t force someone to love you. He gave us free will, KNOWING that some people would choose to not love Him.

So when Jesus says we “MUST” love, He’s kinda saying, “If you decide to love God, do it this way. ALL IN! Not half way.” As I’ve pointed out already, Jesus added mind to the list of what to love God with. In my opinion, this is like a one up to the old way.

The Bible has over 63,000 connections between the Old and New Testaments. Our verses are one of those times because Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6: 4-5. (Which we wrote on Day 10,)

Loving our neighbor means loving others well. If we aren’t doing that we aren’t living a fully surrendered life. We can’t claim to love God and hate other people. Religion might try to get you to, but it is NOT how God wants us to live.