
When asked for His opinion on the greatest commandment of God, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). In essence, Jesus is saying that the two most important things for you to focus on in this life is loving God with everything you’ve got, and out of that, loving those around you. The man that lives this way is what the bible calls an upright man. He walks in a manner that is not crooked or perverse, not wicked or unjust, but rather noble and righteous, honorable and true.
It's obvious that the world is lacking men of this caliber today. From the cowardly and self-absorbed to the vile and filthy, our culture is filled with men who are more concerned with loving themselves than they are for loving the heavenly Father, much less those around them. We have entire generations of men who are so focused on themselves and their own sin that they have no room in their brains to even consider those around them. This must change, For the sake of our children, our churches, our nation, and the world itself.
This world was never designed to be ruled by men who are self-seeking and self-consumed. From the beginning the command from God to man was for man to worship his Father in heaven by way of an intimate, personal relationship, to be relentlessly committed to the wife God had given him, and to work diligently in the world God had given to him. Through our first father, Adam, mankind fell into sin and distorted this simple way of life, wreaking havoc on creation. No longer are men prone to love the Lord their God and love their wives, children, and neighbors; instead, men are, by nature, prone to love sin, self, and Satan, living with a heart of stone that refuses to beat for anyone but themselves. We are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3).
But when the Gospel of the glorious grace of God comes into a man’s life and he sees the magnitude of his sin and his need for a Savior, repents, and turns to the only name under heaven given among men by which we might be saved (Acts 4:12), the name of Jesus, everything changes. He is no longer bound by sin and shame to seek only himself and his own good, but he is made able to live for another, namely God, and for others, his neighbors, because he has been given a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) that has the capacity to beat like it was intended in the beginning, for God and for others. When a man is properly arrested by the sheer majesty and awe-inspiring glory of the Gospel, it will reorient his desires and begin the long and arduous process of rewiring the mind and heart to desire the things of God, like selflessness and sacrifice.
The upright man is one who stands with sincerity before God and says, “I love you,” and goes into the world and shows it by loving his neighbor. To make it simple, put God first. Seek him in every way, as much as you can, whenever you can, and out of that earnest and genuine seeking will flow a love for the people around you. It doesn’t work the other way around. Trying to love others without being in right standing before God is like trying to pour water out of an empty cup. You must be filled (Ephesians 5:18) with the Holy Spirit in a continual manner so that you are able to give that which you have received, namely, love. Seek God early, seek him first, seek him often, and out of that, seek the good of others.