The call of the Old Testament prophet Joel, "Return to the Lord with all our hearts," is an inward work. "Rend your hearts and not your garments," is not a superficial act of spirituality where I might try to give up a few things or say I am more holy because of an outward adjustment I make during Lent. This is a radical departure from religion to a relationship of love.
Jesus Himself addresses this when the Pharisee asks Him. "Teacher. Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" And Jesus says to Him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:36-30
And so we are caught in what God is depending on: love. The Law of God depends on love and the Prophets depend on love; our whole existence and relationship with God depends on love. First, that He loved us: "See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.... In this is love, not that we have loved God but that but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 3:1; 4:9.10
So Someone has taken the payment and guilt of our sin so that we might be restored to love, become God's children and love others. This call to love God and others is the full weight and way of the Gospel- it is to be our disposition and our delight. Paul gives us all the qualities in 1 Corinthians 13 that we might have a measuring stick and might know ourselves and how well we live and love.
May the Lenten call to return to God with our whole hearts open our lives to loving Him and others.
Medicine from Sacred Scriptures:
" Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love each other."
1 John 4:11
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