Wholehearted: Living Life By The Greatest CommandmentНамуна

Loving God with Our Minds

The Shema teaches that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength. In the next three readings, we’ll go a little deeper by looking at each of these aspects individually. Today, let’s focus on the word heart.

The Hebrew word for heart is lev. With just a few exceptions (1 Sam. 25:37; 2 Kings 9:24), this word doesn’t refer to the actual human organ for pumping blood. Instead, it is the inner space of a place (“heart of the sea,” Exod. 15:8; “heart of heaven,” Deut. 4:11) or person. Lev often refers to the cognitive or volitional aspects of the person. In Old Testament Hebrew, lev refers to our emotions, thoughts, and moral compass.

• Our emotions: Our emotions, desires, and will emanate from the heart. For example, Hannah’s heart rejoices when her prayer is heard by God (1 Sam. 2:1). Whether it be rejoicing or lamenting, we are called to love God with all of our emotions. Our emotions are often tied to our relationships with friends and family. God has an integral place in the emotional part of our relationships.


• Our thoughts: In Hebrew, the heart holds cognitive functions as well. Consider these examples: storing up wisdom (1 Kings 3:12; 2 Chron. 9:23; Prov. 16:23); giving consent and making plans, as in “setting one’s heart on something” (Deut. 10:15; Job 7:17, 34:14; of humans, 1 Chron. 22:19; 2 Chron. 2:14, 19:3; Ezra 7:10). When Jesus references the Shema (Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27), he adds the word “mind” to indicate that lev also encompasses our thought life. As part of loving God with all of our thoughts, God desires us to take every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) and invites us to think things through with him (Isa. 1:18).


• Our moral compass: The heart provides the moral compass from which a person acts in the world, either for good (Job 11:13) or evil (Jer. 17:9). God desires us to walk according to his word to the extent that it is written on our hearts (Heb. 10:16). Our love for God requires us to be in alignment with his character.

We are to love God with all of our heart, with all that is within us – our thoughts, emotions, desires, and morality. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that we need cleansing from our outward and inward sins. The outward sin of adultery, for example, is fed by the inward sin of lust.

Sometimes our lives are so busy and noise-filled that we don’t take time for quiet introspection and prayerful reflection on our thoughts and emotions. And sometimes we kid ourselves that we can be alone with our thoughts. God invites us to bring all of this to him, to confess our inner sins, and to love him with all our heart.

How does it make you feel to know that God cares about your emotions, desires, and morality? Have you ever thought about him wanting to connect with you through these things?

Additional Elements

Read “Applying Stewardship to Our Relationship with God” to learn how to begin connecting with God emotionally, enabling you to love him more fully with all your heart, soul, and strength.