If you love cupcakes, you'll eat cupcakes. And if you eat enough cupcakes, there are repercussions of that as well.
If you love the theater, you'll go see lots of musicals. As a result, you'll learn many of the plays by heart, and you'll meet lots of people who also love the theater.
When you love things or people, you act appropriately. Augustine talked about the root of sin being our disordered loves -- we love the wrong things too much, and so we do the wrong things as a result. In the same way, when we love the right things, we make the right choices. Jesus is trying to teach us to love the same things God loves, to love all people because God loves all people. When we love properly, we then act out of that love, and then the way we act changes us -- there's a result, and then our life isn't the same.
In the same way, when we love God, we do the things God calls us to do. And Jesus is sending us more help in the person of the Holy Spirit, who guides us and strengthens us and teaches us and inspires us. The Holy Spirit encourages us to continue loving the things that God loves, and so it's a cycle -- the more steps we take, the more encouragement we receive, the more we want to keep loving the things of God.
So may we take the first step, no matter how small, and let God guide us from there.
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