Putting God First!

Friday, August 23, 2024

Ez 37:1-14; Mt 22: 34-40

Today’s Gospel highlights God as the first object of our love before self and neighbors.

Jesus makes love of God the prerequisite for loving ourselves and our neighbors. 

How can we understand Jesus’ statement? Why should God be our first object of love? 

God as the primary object of our love follows profound reasons. 

At first, if love forms the Christian identity, it should follow a proper order. God created us to know, love, and serve Him, and therefore, we put God first. Acts 17:28 reminds us that in God, we live, move, and have our being. Hence, God is the first object of our love. 

Secondly, God represents fullness and perfection. Hence, apart from God, we cannot realize the fullness of our human nature. By helping us to grow in love, compassion, justice, mercy, righteousness, and holiness, God inspires us to be who we can be at our best. 

Thirdly, as we sometimes mistakenly conclude, putting God first does not call for self-effacement. On the contrary, we enhance ourselves and our lives by putting God first. Loving God can only make us better parents, children, siblings, neighbors, employees, co-workers, managers, and so on. Loving God is not loving ourselves or our neighbors less. Quite the reverse, loving God helps us love ourselves more genuinely and our neighbors less selfishly. 

If loving God makes us better humans, how can we understand atheists and their love of self and neighbors? 

Indeed, atheists are better humans too. Their love of self and others can still be genuine and less selfish. However, atheistic love will still want what only loving God can evoke in us. In other words, it will lack the depth and profundity with which a believer can exemplify loving oneself and loving others. 

Christians put God first so we can love ourselves and others the way God wants us to!

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar