Love for the Lord cannot have any substitutes. God is a jealous God (Ex. 34:14) Christians are good at putting the Lord a close second or maybe in third place. But, to love the Lord with all thine heart is Christian living at another level, the way it was meant to be. How much did the Lord love us? He gave his only begotten Son. Our Heavenly Father could not not have loved us any more than that. The Son himself could not have loved us any more either. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) In response, we ought to love God the way he loved us. 

The Bible tells us to: "Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." (Jude 1:21) This verse is good for all times and may be particularly useful for those living in the End Times. The closer we get to meeting the Lord the more we will want to conform to be like Christ. God is love (1 John 4:8). Christians should keep themselves in the love of God, placing the Lord first in all we say and do. This priority helps safeguard that we leave not our First Love. Our first love is to put Jesus Christ first in everything. Christ must be first in our heart, marriage, family, home, work, school, community and church. What a grand difference this will make when each of us does this! We should also be "looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." The hymn says: "By looking unto Jesus, Like Him thou shalt be" (Take Time to Be Holy). Paul said it this way: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18) The Spirit's job is to change us. Our job is to behold Christ. Keeping our eyes upon the Christ of the Bible is to keep our first love. Setting our eyes upon something or someone else is to leave our first love for that other priority. The Lord is jealous when we set our affection on something or someone else. May we keep ourselves in the love of God.

The outflow of our love for the Lord is our love for others. "And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:31) There are many verses telling Believers that we ought to love one another. "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you."(John 15:12) "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."(Romans 13:8) "But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another." (1 Thessalonians 4:9) One need not jettison sound doctrine, working with fervor and evangelistic zeal in order to love others. Love will produce a pure motive and steadfastness in all of these. But, these things can be done without love (1 Cor. 13:1-3; Rev. 2:1-4 ). 

Thus, living in the End Times means loving God first and loving others because you love God first. Pastors and churches should know this best: "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned [not fake]." (1 Timothy 1:5) Timothy was told in this pastoral epistle that sound Bible doctrine leads to love in action. One cannot really have sound doctrine without also loving God preeminently and displaying a great love for others also.

Some people think of living in the End Times as being glued to the news. In reality, End Times living is first of all about love? Are you living in the End Times like you should be?

James Utter