Verse for the week of October 23rd:
Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
(Matthew 22:37)
This verse is a very familiar verse of the Bible. It has Jesus answering a question about what is the greatest commandment. And his response is this—you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is a great answer and one that people see as wise and profound counsel. But the question to me is this—what does this mean? What does it mean to love God in this way? How do I fulfill this command?
At first glance, this seems like a most difficult thing to do. It calls us to love God with our whole being. I think that it is difficult to do anything whole hearted. Most of us will get excited about something and we go all in. But how long does that last? Most of the time, after some time has elapsed our enthusiasm, energy and total devotion tends to waver to a degree. It is difficult to have this total devotion consistently.
Jesus however, does call us to love God with everything—our heart, our soul and our mind. So how do we live this out? I think that it can take many different directions, depending upon the person. Loving God with everything—does not necessarily mean that we read the Bible all the time, or are in worship at every service, or anything like that.
To me loving God with everything means that we place God first in our life and that we seek to do everything we can to honor him. It means that we seek to praise him in our words and actions. It also means that we seek to integrate our faith life and spirituality into our everyday living. Sometimes people tend to compartmentalize their lives. Work and family comprises most of the day, but we give Sunday to God. Loving God with all our heart, our soul and our mind means that we cannot do this—God is interested in our on Monday just as much as on Sunday. And our loving him should know no bounds.
The next part of loving God with everything is also fulfilled in what Jesus says next. Jesus goes on to tell the person and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. I think that it is intentional that Jesus keeps these together—for we cannot love God with everything we have if we do not love our neighbor as well. Loving God also means that we need to love our neighbor and live this out as well.
Jesus calls us to a radical concept of loving God not just part way, but with everything. How do you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind?