What is the central focus of our lives as we are following Jesus?

God and neighbor.

Loving God and loving our neighbor becomes the key. We are created with love of God and neighbor as our purpose. When we think of the deep questions of human life, this is how we are designed.

What is the meaning of life?
What is my purpose?

Loving God and loving your neighbor.

The bestselling classic book The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren, needed only one paragraph to answer the purpose question. The purpose of every single human being is identical. “Love God and neighbor.” The differences all revolve around the question, “How?”

The life of radical goodness is to give and forgive. Give of yourself for the sake of the other, seek forgiveness when you mess up, and forgive when you are wronged. If we are always giving and forgiving doesn’t that mean our lives become all about losing and sacrifice? In the “God and neighbor” centered-life it is just the opposite. As we reach out, we are enhanced and expanded. Jesus said it this way,

Luke 6:37-38 (NLT)
“Stop judging others, and you will not be judged. Stop criticizing others, or it will all come back on you. If you forgive others, you will be forgiven. [38] If you give, you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving—large or small—it will be used to measure what is given back to you.”

The path of self-denial is possible because God designed us this way. We are perfectly safe to let God worry about our desires and needs. We don’t have to try to enhance our own lives by always looking out for #1, because God is always looking out for us. We are free to give everything we have and everything we are to God and neighbor. Our very soul is given back to us and we become truly human for the very first time. This is just what God has in mind all along.

What does loving God look like to you?