The Great Commandment is to love God with our WHOLE BEING (Mark 12:30-31). The great benediction of 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 is that our WHOLE BEING would be sanctified through and through, with the promise that the One who calls us to holiness is the One who will do it. This is no casual connection; this is a connection that comes to the heart of things. The One who calls us to love enables us to love. The God who is love puts Himself inside of us to shed abroad His love in our hearts (Romans 5:5); this love inside us is to flow out the very ends of our fingertips in acts of righteousness and selfless service. God enables us to do what He requires. He is the Father who puts an impossible burden on us so that we have to depend on Him to help us.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” Mark 12:30-31 NRSV).
