In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells His followers and tells us that we are to love Him with all of our hearts, our minds, our souls, and our strength, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We know that this commandment was first given to the children of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai after their escape from Egypt, and then again some forty years later, right before they entered the Promised Land. Jesus commands that we love Him with all of our hearts and all that we have, and that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

This command was not to be performed as a legal action written on tablets, or in our case in our Bibles or on our devices, but it is to be written on the tablets of our hearts. That is worship. When we worship God and we love Him and we love others, that is what worship is. That is true religion.

First Corinthians chapter 13 tells us that we can be gifted, that we can understand and give prophecy, that we can even give our lives as martyrs, but if we don’t love, it means nothing. To love God with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves calls for a full surrender of our wills, our desires, and our rights, because we can’t do it in and of ourselves.

First Corinthians 6:19-20, tell us that we have been bought with a price and that we are not our own. We belong to God. To love God and others calls for us to practice remembrance.

In Deuteronomy chapters 6 and 8, God tells Israel and us what we are to do. But He doesn’t just tell us what to do, He tells us why. In this we see the mercy of God. In a typical master-servant relationship, the master doesn’t explain why, but the God of the universe calls us His children, calls us His friends, and tells us why. He says, “Come, let us reason together.” He tells us to remember because He knows we are prone to forget.

When our stomachs are full, when our cupboards are stacked, when our bank accounts are increasing, when our health is good, when our children are on the right track, we are prone to forget. We forget that it is God who gives us strength to get wealth. We forget that it is God who heals and keeps our bodies well, who saves our children and blesses us with every spiritual blessing. Most importantly, we forget that it is God who forgives, saves, and delivers us from the bondage of sin. That is the greatest blessing—bringing us from the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous light and into the kingdom of His Son.

In Deuteronomy, God tells us that we are to remember and do. We are responsible for what the Word of God says. We are responsible for what we read in our Bibles. We are responsible for the Word that we hear every Sunday, every Thursday night, and every 6 a.m. prayer. We are responsible to remember and to do.

First, we are to be careful to observe and follow His commands. That is obedience, and it is an act of reverence and worship. If we’re not obeying God and following His commands, we’re not really worshiping.

Second, we are to remember how He leads us and feeds us. That is guidance and provision.

Third, we are to know that as a father disciplines his son, the Lord disciplines us. That is part of the sifting and shifting.

Then He tells us why we should remember and do what He commands, so that we and our children may live, increase, and enter into the promises He has given. Our receiving the promises of God depends upon our remembering and obeying. We cannot experience the blessings of God unless we are obeying God. To obey God, we have to remember who He is and what He has done.

We are to remember because remembering humbles us. It invites gratitude to God and helps us extend grace to others. When we remember what God has done for us and how much He has forgiven us, it helps us forgive others.

When we are offended by others, we cry out for justice and vengeance. We are quick to judge. If we’re not careful, we hold on to unforgiveness and bitterness. But when we sin and offend God and others, we cry out for grace and mercy. We need to extend that same grace and mercy to others that God extends to us.

We also remember because God is a jealous God. That means He wants all of us, not some of us, but all of us.

And we remember because obeying God’s commands is the definition of righteousness. When we obey God, we are walking in righteousness.

Finally, remembering points us back to Calvary. When we remember all that God has done for us, when we remember what Jesus endured for us, we become grateful. When we remember, we can love Him with all that we are—with all our hearts, our minds, our souls, and our strength—and we can love our neighbors as ourselves.

It is important to remember where we were when Jesus found us, what we were doing, and the lives we were living apart from Him. When we remember all that He has done, our souls respond with gratitude and praise.

Remembering keeps us humble. Remembering helps us love God. When we think about all that He did and how He prayed, “Not my will, but Your will be done,” and how He went all the way to Calvary, it should make us willing to surrender all to Him and to love Him with all that we have and are, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

That is where we often struggle—loving others. We are offended by family, coworkers, neighbors, and people in the church. That’s where we get tripped up. But that is not God’s will. We are to love Him, and we are to love others. On these two commands hang all the law and the prophets.

If we are not doing that, then it is not true religion. We may have a form of godliness, but not the heart of it. I know it’s hard to forgive when we’ve been offended, but that is what God requires. He doesn’t ask us to do anything He doesn’t give us the grace and strength to do.

How do we do it? By remembering. By surrendering all to Him.