“…and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, all your being and all your resources.”-Deuteronomy 6:5
Today, let’s take a good look at the second part of the SHEMA which commands us to “love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul and mind” or more literally to “love YHVH your Elohim” per the original Hebrew.
This is actually a perfect opportunity to determine whether Biblically speaking the word “love” is an emotion or an “action“.
In a previous post, I’ve already told you that according to the Hebrew mindset, “love” is NOT an emotion but a vigorous action verb.
If God is really commanding us to conjure up the emotion of love here, we’ve got a problem because unless you’re a professional actor, that is one of the most difficult things in the world to do.
Trust me I have firsthand knowledge about this.
There was a time in my life when I wanted to become a professional actor and in order to achieve that goal I spent a couple of years undergoing intense actor training.
While it is possible to mimic an emotion, a real actor through memory work and other deep techniques actually taps into real and raw feelings in order to fulfill the emotional requirements of a scene he or she is acting out.
Pretend emotions or feelings that are mimicked don’t carry the emotional impact necessary to move audiences to tears or to heights of joy.
So what’s my point?
My point in sharing all of this is that God is NOT commanding us to love him by deliberating harboring warm and fuzzy feelings of affection towards him.
Rather, he is commanding us to demonstrate our love to him via the medium of physical actions.
Commanding a physical action is an entirely different issue than commanding an emotion.
Here’s the thing.
We’re perfectly capable of performing a physical action EVEN IF WE DON’T FEEL LIKE IT.
We can resist the temptation to worship false gods or frolic with the pagans.
We can physically celebrate a Biblical Feast even if our hearts are not so into it.
Now I suspect at the last sentence some of you may be thinking…doesn’t God hate mindless ritual and detest us just going through the motions to please him?
Yes, he does but it all depends on your initial intention.
If your intention is to sincerely do good but just don’t feel like it or are not in the mood because it takes work, that is totally different than a mindset of indifference that just goes through the motions.
Normally the emotion of love results AFTER all the other factors are in place first.
In other words, contrary to popular opinion, your emotions take cue from and follow after your actions, NOT vice versa.
My main point is that out of all the components which comprise the Biblical notion of love, I would say emotion is of much lesser importance compared to action.
This is important to understand because there is no more important aspect to our relationship with God than to love Him.
Here’s another way to more clearly understand the Biblical notion of love.
Let’s examine the opposite word for love from a Biblical perspective.
The opposite word for “love” is “hate“.
Now if you are person who was born and raised in the west, you’re understanding of the word “hate” is that it means to harbor intense feelings of revulsion for something.
Again, you’re operating under the assumption that hate involves primarily your emotions.
But…that is NOT the Biblical meaning of the word.
The Biblical meaning of the word actually has a physical component to it.
It literally means to demonstrate unfaithfulness or to reject God’s commands.
In other words, in the Bible, to hate God means to reject His Torah and be unfaithful to its instructions.
And what’s the converse of that?
What does it mean to love God?
It means to accept His Torah and be faithful to its instructions.
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