Love God

Scripture

“‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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 12:29–30

“We love because He first loved us.”—1 John 4:19

Devotional

As Christians we are called to love God with every part of who we are, and this is where the Christian walk starts. You can be the most obedient Christian ever, but if you don’t love God, all that obedience means nothing. Our life should revolve around God. This doesn’t mean we can’t love other things and do other things, but He should be at the forefront of our minds. Let’s look at what it means to love Him “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Heart: Loving God with all your heart will trickle down to the other areas. It doesn’t matter how physically fit you are if you have a heart problem. When your heart is turned away from the Lord, your heart is covered by a veil. We can’t see or reflect Him (2 Corinthians 3:16–18).

Soul: His thoughts become my thoughts, His feelings my feelings, His decisions my decisions. Our entire being is to display that we love God. We are so connected to Him that we begin to look more and more like Him every single day.

Mind: In Christ, we have a new mind (Romans 12:1–2), but also, we should pursue knowledge of the Lord. Ravi Zacharias once said, “What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.” We love God with our mind when we learn more about Him. We do this by reading the Bible, praying, reading Christian books, etc.

Strength: Our outward action begins to change. This isn’t just physical strength, but everything we have. The apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 3:23, “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.” Often, when you workout, you want to get one more rep in, leave it all in the gym. Do you do that one more rep when it comes to knowing Jesus and living for Him and with Him?