Loving God: Commandment, Practice, Fasting

What unites loving God, learning to love, and fasting?

There’s a single thread through Scripture and practice: love is both command and cultivation. We are commanded to love God wholly, taught how that love looks in everyday life, and invited into rhythms—like prayer and fasting—that deepen affections.

When we treat love as a box to check rather than a life to inhabit, our faith becomes brittle. We'll consider the greatest commandment, how to grow a real love for God, and whether fasting is a helpful tool for that growth.

Why the Greatest Commandment still shapes our days

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment."
— Matthew 22:37-38

Jesus trimmed a library of law into one compass needle. In the moment when a learned lawyer tries to test him, Jesus reframes religion from rulekeeping to relationship: love God, love neighbor. That wasn’t sentimentalism; it was strategic. Loving God governs every other obedience because love orders the heart.

Behind the Words: In Matthew 22 Jesus is answering religious experts who hoped to trap him in theological hair-splitting. His reply reduced an exhaustive legal code to the essential posture of the soul: devotion to God and compassion toward others.

The Heart of It: Love for God is the root that makes all other actions healthy and faithful.

Try This: Imagine you’re packing for a trip and you put your passport at the top of your bag so you won’t lose it. What if love for God were your passport in life—whatever city you enter or decision you face, you check that priority first? Don’t start your day with headlines; open your heart first.

Many misunderstand love as feeling alone. Jesus meant a decision and steady direction of life—heart, soul, mind—toward God and toward people.

Try This: When a choice feels urgent, ask: “Which option most honors my love for God and my love for my neighbor?” Make that question your first filter.

How to love God without getting lost in busyness

The question isn’t whether we love God—we all have loves. The question is whether our love for God organizes our time, speech, and longing. The New Testament warns that knowing about God isn't the same as knowing God. We can move through religious motions without relationship.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."
— 1 John 4:7

When John writes that love is of God he’s offering both an identity and an invitation: love flows from the divine fountain, and living from that fountain means practicing habits that keep us connected.

Behind the Words: John isn’t only teaching doctrine; he’s naming a lived reality. If love truly issues from God, then our practices should keep us drinking from that source.

The Heart of It: Love grows in conversation, not checklist. If you don’t talk with God, your devotion becomes performance.

Try This: Call it prayer, quiet time, or honest conversation—choose a daily rhythm that’s nonnegotiable.

A short, practical story: someone decided to set aside fifteen minutes each morning not for reading a devotional but for telling God the things they noticed—gratitude for a warm bed, the raw fear about a bill, the small joy in a child’s laugh. Over weeks those fifteen minutes turned into an actual relationship. Your talk with God trains your heart to love him.

We also learn from honest moments of failure. A personal account about a planned three-day absolute fast is instructive: after a few minutes of prayer the person realized they didn’t know what to say next—because their worship had been surface-level. That confession is a gift. When worship becomes routine, take a step back and ask: do I really know this Person I claim to love?

Try This: Replace one daily scrolling session for a week with ten minutes of conversation with God—no agenda, just presence. Watch how familiarity without formality begins to deepen affection.

Can spiritual fasting deepen your devotion?

Fasting is confusing for many. Is it legalism? Is it spiritual showmanship? Or is it a humble practice that clears space so our hungers reveal what we truly worship? Jesus taught about fasting with a heart for secrecy and dependence, not for display.

"Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad face... But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face."
— Matthew 6:16-18

The Bible repeatedly connects fasting to intensified prayer, repentance, and clarity. That’s why people choose different forms: partial fasts, Daniel-style fasting, shorter food fasts, or other temporary renunciations. A vivid—but cautious—example is a planned three-day fast without food or drink done with careful intention. That kind of radical attempt shows a desire to let bodily silence make room for fullness of God.

Behind the Words: Biblical fasting often accompanied seasons of corporate repentance (Joel) or personal preparation (Jesus in the wilderness). It was not a spiritual badge but a posture of dependence and urgency.

The Heart of It: Fasting isn’t about earning God’s favor; it’s about creating spiritual clarity so we can hear him better.

Try This: Picture a Saturday morning. Instead of reaching for coffee and your phone, take a walk with no playlist and no podcast—just God and your thoughts. Name three honest longings: clarity, courage, healing. Sit with those longings in prayer. That small fast—temporary and humble—can reveal whether your appetite is for things or for God.

Practical caution: one personal account included intimate specifics and a running tally of the hours remaining, which remind us that fasting can expose pride or vulnerability. Always consult medical advice before attempting extreme fasts. Spiritual disciplines without pastoral and health wisdom can become dangerous.

When fasting is paired with Scripture and confession it can renew affection. For one person, a season of fasting led to a renewed study of God’s character and to writing about worship more intentionally. In that case fasting pointed them back to learning.

Bringing it together: love, practice, and a living Lord

We follow a Savior who is Lord, who humbled himself, and who was raised and exalted. That truth reshapes why we love: not out of fear but in grateful response to a God who is Alpha and Omega and who advocates for us before the Father. When love for God is central, our choices—work, family, prayer, fasting—make sense together.

Start small. Let love be your first question in hard choices. Turn your habits into conversations with God. Try a modest fast that opens space for prayer and Scripture. If you struggle, remember that we have an advocate: Jesus pleads for us, not to excuse laziness but to welcome us back into relationship.

The hard saying stands: "The most important thing you can do in your life is love the Lord your God." Let that sentence rearrange your week. Let your next conversation with God be honest and unhurried. If you feel lost, admit it—humility is the doorway to knowing God more deeply.

We can learn to love God not as an item on our checklist but as the center that orders our days. Name one small change today—a ten-minute conversation, a weekend fast from social media, reading a Psalm aloud—and let love do its quiet, steady work.