Love The Lord With All Of Your Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength

Deuteronomy 6:5                                                                   Kevin e. Jesmer

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (NIV)

Mark 12:29-30,

 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” (NIV)

We are exploring, from Deuteronomy chapter six, how to guard our hearts in the midst of receiving God’s abundant blessings. The next way to guard our hearts is to determine to love the Lord, with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I have included “mind” in this command, because Jesus includes the component of the “mind” in his description of the most important command in Mark 12:29-30.

 Part 1: The Command To Love God.

First, let’s think about determining to obey the command to love God. How is it possible to love God? Isn’t this doing something out of our own human power? Isn’t it legalistic to command someone to love? And why obey the command to love God with such intensity?

It seems like a very daunting task. It seems so hard to simply trudge through our activities of daily living and keep our heads above water. Some days I am more concerned with finding time for a nap, than loving God with all my strength. Also, this command sounds a little bit legalistic. How can anyone command a person to love them? If it comes out of the overflow of our hearts, naturally, than so be it. But anything else makes us cry out, “legalism!” How are we supposed to respond to such an Old Testament command in light of this New Testament age?

Remember it has to do with protecting our hearts. We have a tendency to give our hearts to the things of the world. We drift towards desiring things that are not of God. We become thankless, even when showered with God’s grace. We forget the Lord, even as we remain the object of his affections. Elements of darkness assail our hearts with great ferocity. And so the command to love the Lord with everything we have is a life giving command. It keeps our hearts shut to the darkness of this world and the devil’s whiles, and keeps our hearts open to God. God will be sure to bless the heart that is inclined towards him.

To love God with this intensity is totally possible with the hardware he has given us. We have the ability to love because, first, we are created in God’s image, (Gen 1:27) and second, because we have tasted God’s love personally.

Yes, it is true that we are helpless to love. Before meeting Jesus most of our actions were motivated by self. But then Jesus came to us, revealing his great love to us and creating us anew. His love kindled a spark within our hearts and we began to love, even a little bit more like Jesus. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

We are created in God’s image. The Bible says that God is love. (1 John 4:8). This is one of his attributes. It is also one of the attributes that God has planted in each of his children, whom he created. We may not love like God, but we have been endowed with the ability to love and we can mature spiritually into that aspect of our Creator’s image, as God helps us to grow.

Before meeting Jesus, we may not have had the ability to love on command. But since we have been made alive in Christ we have been set free to love. We have been empowered to love.  We can love, even if we don’t feel like it, because Christ first loved us. And his love is compelling us grow in that love.

We have been equipped by our Creator, with a mind, with a heart, the seat of our passions, with a soul that can worship the Creator, and with a measure of strength. With our minds we are able to love God with our intellect. With our hearts we can love God with a passion. With our souls, we can be elevated in to heights of love a we worship our God and with our strength we can obey the command to love. This has been given to us by our Creator.

Concerning the legalistic question, I think that it is possible to decide to love. Even people who do not know Jesus can decide to love. What about a parent who decides to love their wayward child? What about a child who decides to love their parents even if they don’t deceive it? What about a souse who decides that they will love their unfaithful spouse. We too can decide to love God.  We can wake up and say, “Jesus, by your grace, I am going to love you a little bit more today than yesterday.”

Granted, our love is so weak and ineffectual. It may be nothing more than a mustard seed of love. But God can take that feeble effort at loving and multiply it over and over again.

God makes it easy to decide to love him. A child or a parent or a spouse may decide to love another despite their imperfections, but God has no imperfections. He is perfect in all ways. He is love. There is absolutely no possibility within him to not love. There is no sin in him, only, light, life truth, and love. He comes to us full of grace and truth. When he pours out his grace on us, it makes God very attractive and paves the way for us to make a decision to love God. Grace and truth compels us. Our hearts are drawn to him.

Sometimes we want to emote feelings of love, before we decide to love another. To love without emoting seems a tad legalistic. But it is not wrong to do so. Love is a verb, mostly, Even if we can not emote the feeling of love, we are still called to and are able to love. Love grows in our hearts like a germinated seed. The water is God’s grace.

God makes out love grow. God is looking to us to take the initial steps, to obey his command to love him. Yes, on our own we are loveless. Yes, we are helpless to love. But for those, who by faith, decide to love God, God will bless them and draw them to himself in an eternal love relationship. They will surely bear the fruit of love.

Part 2: The Intensity Of Our Love For God.

God commands his people, who are on the cusp, of being recipients of God’s great blessings, to guard their hearts by loving God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength. This is a tall order. But always keep in mind that God is always there to help us, even though our efforts seem as small as a mustard seed. God is sure to bless any efforts born out of faith.

Let’s examine the different descriptions of our efforts to obey God’s command to love him. These show the quality of our efforts. Each one is used to intensify our efforts. We will mix up the order a little, starting with strength.

 Part A: With All Of Your Strength.

Our strength is something that we can conjure up, even a little bit on our own, even if it is miniscule at times. Strength comes from within our selves.  Strength is something that can be mustered. With our strength we can attempt great things. What about a young man who gets his first set of weights? He wants to lift the dumbbell over his head. He looks at the weight, musters his strength, does a clean and snatch, and voila, it is lifted over his head after he has pushed the barbell up with all of his strength. He has mustered his strength and reached his goal. In the same way we can muster our strength and determine to love God with all of our strength. Granted I know that there are people with not even an ounce of strength left in them to do anything. God is there, to help them walk in his strength alone. (Think about the famous poem; Footprints.)

Part B: With All Of Your Heart.

Applying your strength is limited. Strength can be obtuse, blunted, unfocused, easily spent. You may think that you have given everything you have got to loving God, but there is still a little something left, that you may have never thought was available. That extra ounce of strength can be drawn out with out with passion.  Strength is linked to our passion. We have a lot of strength to do the things that we are passionate about. There is an expression, “Gove it your whole heart.” It is something that comes from deep within us. It is the active ingredient that gets us to perform beyond what strength would normally not allow. It comes from deep within, from the heart.

Strength is one thing, but strength applied with passion from the heart, achieves great things, especially when focused on loving God. When passion is applied to strength it perfects what strength sets out to achieve. If an artist or an activist, or a scientist, you name it, sets out to achieve something, and does it with a passion, you can be assured that what is accomplished is something of quality. We can excel at something beyond what was ever thought possible.

Part C: Love God With Your Mind.

Our “minds” have to do with our intellect and our ability to focus our efforts. Using our minds to obey God’s command to love him, takes everything to the next level. Utilizing one’s mind is yet another way that we have been enabled to “give it our all” in obeying God’s command to love him. Using one’s mind is like hiring a consultant. The mind focuses all of our efforts coming from strength and heart. We are not flailing around in our loving efforts. Loving God with all of our minds requires some discipline. Our minds tend to wander. They will wander. To develop the discipline of loving God with our minds, we must start now. Try to focus on loving God. The more you try to focus, the better you will become. It is like working a muscle. God will train you so that you can focus your efforts to love God on him.

Part D: Love God With All Of your Soul

Just when you thought that you have made every conceivable effort to obey the command to love God, think again. There is another component to make our efforts to love God even more genuine, more fruitful and it is means provided by God. It involves loving God with all of your soul. This brings in worship to the mix. God created us body and soul. Our souls are the part of us made to commune with God in holy fellowship. With our souls we worship the Lord, we revere him, and we listen to his still small voice. With our souls we offer up our lives to him in reverence and devotion. When we seek to obey God’s command to love him, and we include our souls in that obedience, our obedience becomes an act of worship. Invoking the soul sweetens the obedience. Obedience to God’s commands is no longer a burden. We actually overcome the world by our worship of God. 1 John 5:2-4 reads,

“2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

Part 3: Conclusion:

God is serious about many things. He is serious about revealing his love and blessing his people. He is serious about maintaining an eternal love relationship with us. He is serious at protecting our hearts and helping us to guard our hearts against the powers of darkness in this world and Satan’s incessant scheming. He tells us how to guard our hearts. The aspects we explored in this section, in determining to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, soul and strength, God has already equipped with all we need to engage in the spiritual battle and win. We have the inner equipment we need to love God. We have minds, souls, hearts and we can generate some strength. Our God is with us to help us each step of the way. May God help us guard our hearts, by determining to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength.