LOVING THE LORD YOUR GOD

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30 ESV)

Many say they love God but offer Him only a divided heart. They believe they can love the Lord and seek to please their selfish desires in the same moment. However, God lays claim to the whole heart.

We are to love God with all our soul (spirit). The spirit is where our loftiest sacred practices begin. The spirit is vital to the life of faith and communicates the love or lack of love we have for God. There are lots of people who do Christian things on the outside but inwardly they have not changed. Loving God with all your soul is loving Him with all your inner being.

Have you pledged the power of your mind to God’s service? The intellect is a gift from God who can light it with brilliance or darken it with foolishness. Do you give Him the best of this wonderful instrument or do your mental powers belong exclusively to your own felt wants and needs?

Loving God with all our strength is using every ability we have to express our love for God. We are to be grateful receivers of all the talents God has given us by using them in His service. God expects us to love Him with all our strength by accomplishing good works that He has prepared from the beginning of time for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10 ESV)

We must love God with our whole being and life. Our God is a jealous God and He wants our whole being. We are to use all that we have; heart; mind; soul; and strength in the service of God because of our love for God. We cannot just give God part of us. Pray for God to help us love Him more.