LOYALTY TO GOD IS THE TRUE REQUIREMENT

I don't know about you my friend, but I have always had difficulty understanding the extent of the love we are told we should have for our God of the Universe. It wasn't until I started looking a little deeper into the original Hebrew texts of the Bible that I got a better understanding of what it meant to love God.

Deuteronomy 6:5 states, “You shall love (אהבת; ahavta) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your strength”. But what does it mean to “love” God according to ancient Israelite thought? For the biblical authors, love was not just an intense form of “liking” or some kind of “warm feeling” for another that my mind kept going to for so long; rather, the most common Hebrew word for “love” (אהבה; ahavah) expresses loyalty.

To understand love as “loyalty” in Deut 6:5, we need to read the verse in the context of what comes right before it: the Shema. Most English translations of Deut 6:4 read, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one (אחד; echad).” While the Hebrew אחד can mean “one”—as in, “and there was evening, and there was morning: day one (אחד)” (Gen 1:5) -- echad can also mean “alone.” Here’s a stronger translation of Deut 6:4: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” That is, in plain English, the Lord is our God, and we the people must “not go after (solicit or worship) other gods” (Deut 6:14); we must “love,” or be “loyal” to, the Lord our one true God and saviour alone. *(You will undoubtedly need to read this paragraph several more times in order to fully grasp the "one" God emphasis.)

The loyalty we have for the Heavenly God -- to the exclusion of all other gods -- extends to our fellow human beings, particularly those who are less familiar to us. Leviticus uses the exact same word for our “loyalty” to God in the command to love the stranger: “You shall treat the stranger who dwells with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself”.

When it comes to the heavenly realm, we are to be loyal to God alone, but here on earth, God commands us to pledge that same loyalty to those around us.

I can now wrap my simple mind around that.

To my way of thinking, loyalty cannot and should not be compared to love. Loyalty is consistent, reliable, and faithful. On the other hand love, while sublimely intense in the flesh and under ideal conditions, is short-lived and limited. 

Love is not guaranteed, and not everyone can experience love, but everyone can give and/or experience the loyalty of which we speak, no matter who it is.