For the past couple of weeks I have been reading an excerpt from A Gospel Primer for Christians each morning. This past week I read this section that fits so well with 1 John 2:3-6 and the directive to “keep His commandments”. Milton Vincent writes:
To love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength is the greatest commandment in the Law (Mark 12:28-30). If I could simply fulfill this one commandment, I would gladly fulfill all others as a natural matter of course.
So how can I come to love God with all my being (1 John 5:3)? The Bible teaches that genuine love in my heart for God is generated by an awareness of His love for me (1 John 4:19), and nowhere is the love of God more clearly revealed than in the gospel (Romans 5:7-8, John 15:13, Ephesians 2:4-5).
Therefore, preaching the gospel to myself is a great way to keep God’s amazing love before my eyes, so that I might experience its power to produce in me a passionate love for Him in return. Captured by His love in this way, my smitten heart increasingly burns to do His will and feasts itself on doing so. (John 14:31, John 4:34, Psalm 40:8)