God wants a relationship with us. If you could get your hands on me right now, you would probably want to see if you could stop me from repeating that. First of all, I am glad you can't reach me right now. But, this is the moment when we take this concept to the next level. God's desire for a relationship isn't ever going to change. But, we are getting ready to look at a special system from God. This system from God is going to enable us to broaden our love for Him and do a mighty ministry with Him. We have already looked at the fact that God considers how we treat others as being the way we treat Him. Whatever we do or don't do to them is what we do or don't do to Him. That is the way God looks at it. Jesus, Our King, is going to say this to those who stand before Him on that Judgment Day.

Mat 25:40 (NIV) "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.'

Mat 25:45 (NIV) "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.'

That is a Ministerial Spiritual Warfare concept. We are showing God how much we love Him by demonstrating our love for others. We can feel a tremendous amount of love for God. We can demonstrate this love directly to Him by talking to Him, praising Him, listening to Him, obeying Him through yielding to His righteousness, obeying Him by resisting sin, and allowing Him to fill us with His presence.

General, Sanctification, and Preventative Spiritual Growth brought us closer and closer to God. We were gradually growing closer to God because we were getting rid of those things that were hurting our relationship with God. Ministerial Spiritual Warfare broadens our love relationship with God even more. It will take our relationship with God to a much higher level. This is done by our starting to include others in on our love.

Mark 12:30 (NIV) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

If this first aspect of love wasn't in place, then nothing else would matter. We had to spend a lot of time reaching this goal. But, once that goal is reached, the second aspect of love has to be established. What we may not get out of this Scripture is the fact that Mark 12:31 is a continuation of Mark 12:30. Mark 12:31 takes the concepts of Mark 12:30 and carries them into the next Scripture. It is simply a deepening of our love for God.

Mark 12:31 (NIV) The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."