“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” Luke 10:27
Ever wonder what the Bible means when it says to love God with your heart, soul, strength, and mind? As one who does not know either Hebrew or Greek, I am prone, at first, to interpret these English words very basically as emotions, spirit, body, and intellect. However, even the shortest online search for studies on these terms tell us it isn’t so easy.
Some writers say these terms are not intended to divvy up human nature into neat categories. Others think they overlap like circles on a Venn diagram. Still others picture them as concentric circles with some more central and others on the edges. And few agree on psychological equivalents in human experience.
That’s why I like how one writer puts it: God wants us to love and obey him with “everything we’ve got.”
Remember young King Josiah? Of him it was written: “Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses” (2 Kings 23:25). Josiah gave it his all in line with God’s law.
In a new year we are tempted to make resolutions that are SMART—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. There is much wisdom here. Yet I wonder if God wished we would focus less on outcomes and more about being His person, with everything we have, enjoying His fellowship, and obeying His commands. Doing so makes loving him less about us being successful, and more about Him being Lord.
Thank you God that you have made us complex so that we can love and obey you diversely! Please be my strength and comfort as I seek to make you Lord of my world. Amen.
* Think of a way you can practically work towards giving God all you’ve got.
by Bill Strom
Used by Permission
Further Reading
• Heart Fully Committed to Him
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