Thursday, February 23, 2012

Learning to Love God


Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandment
 34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
 37 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Because loving God is the first and greatest commandment, you would think loving God would be a priority.  So, let me ask you, what does it actually mean to love God?
When I first met Christ at age 9 and starting growing in my understanding of what following him looked like, I honestly don’t remember loving God the way I loved other things in my life.  For example, I remember loving my parents and my brother.  I loved my dog, cats and horse, Midnight and I had friends that I loved, but I did not understand loving God with my heart, soul and mind.  I knew it was something I was supposed to do and I wanted to do it, I just didn’t know how! 
“Love the Lord your (he’s my God) God with all your (my) heart”
As I’ve grown older and experienced love, I’ve gained a better understanding of loving God.  The first thing I learned was to make my relationship personal.  It’s when you really get to know someone that you fall in love.  Loving God with my all my heart has to do with my affection for him, feelings, emotions….

 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul”
and loving God with all my soul has to do with devotion.  The soul literally is the part of me  (us) that defines who I am and who you are. The essence of the biblical definition for soul means life, personality, the inner self and our identity. It’s where we make our decisions and choices that ultimately decide our lifestyle and behavior. Think of the soul as the “core you”.To love the Lord with all my (your) soul means to love Him in the way I (we) live, in the choices I (we) make and in the behavior and lifestyle I (we) adopt.


“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”
 My mind is my intellect—the place where I analyze, figure-out and plan things; the place where knowledge and understanding are analyzed and manipulated to bring about a conclusion or decision.  I believe loving God with all my mind means knowing fully who God is by taking the time to fill my mind with God’s Word and being in agreement with him.  Understanding what he did for me on the cross and being certain of what I believe and living it out demonstrates that I love him with all my mind.
How about you?  Are you loving him with your heart, soul and mind?  I hope today you’ll begin to do so.
 



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