If my wife said to me, “I order you now! Love me!” What would I do? Probably wouldn’t be feeling the love. If she was lucky (she is), I might try harder to be nice to her. But that’s not going to last long. If love does not flow from a heart-felt desire, it will not endure and isn’t authentic. There must be an inner longing to be closer to and care for someone to call it love. 

How is it then that God commands us to love? Can we control our feelings? The repeated commandments in the Bible to “love God and love your neighbor” seem like an oxymoron. Certainly, the kind of ongoing and long-suffering love that God requires. (see I Corinthians 13)

We expect love to be more than just an obedient servitude, and rightly so. How is it then that we are ordered to “love God with all our heart, might and soul”? Can matters...