Priority Number One: Loving God

Let me begin by reading the quote from Jesus when an expert in the law tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” And Jesus answered:

 

“The most important one 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.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”  (Matthew 22:36 – 40)

 

As followers of Jesus Christ, if we are truly his disciples, then our priorities should be the same as his, don’t you think? Therefore our answer to the question: What are the two most important things in all of life? should be simple: Love God and love people! Jesus said all the other commandments and all the teachings of the prophets hang on these two commandments, to love God and love people.

 

I want to talk about priority number one: loving God.

 

If you truly love someone, there would be evidence of it in your life. You think and talk about the people you love; you do things for people you love; you honor people you love; you sacrifice for people you love. The list could go on. 

 

So, what are the evidences in our lives that we truly love God? Well, how much do you talk and think about God? When you have free thought time, when your mind is not necessarily occupied with other duties, how natural is it for you to think about God? During your workday do you find yourself holding an inner-conversation with God as you face various situations and challenges? When you are tempted to worry or get angry or frustrated, are you likely to start talking to God about what’s happening, sending up silent prayers, asking for guidance and patience? 

 

I have to admit that my love for God can be very anemic. At times I see evidence in my life that the main thing—loving God—is not the main thing because I’m not at that time or in that situation seeking to love God supremely. But I’m determined, by God’s grace, to grow in my knowledge of God and to love him more and more. I’m sure that is your heart as well.

 

First let’s ask the question: What does it mean to love God with all your heart? I used to think that loving God with all my heart had something to do with intensity. If I really loved God with all my heart, I would have continual intense feelings of love, overwhelming emotions about God and for God. It seemed to me that loving with your heart had to do with just how fervently you love because I connected the heart with my emotions and my feelings.

 

But you know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I don’t think Jesus is telling us that we have to have some constant intense feelings of love, but rather that our love should be with all our heart, not just parts of our heart. We have to ask ourselves where our love for God is half-hearted.

 

For example, money could be one part of our lives that we have never relinquished to God. When we love money and what it can buy, rather than seeing ourselves as stewards of the money God has entrusted to us, then it is a half-hearted love for God. If there is a relationship in our lives that is displeasing to God, and we refuse to give it up, then we are not loving God with all our heart.

 

Jesus said that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. That’s the proof that we love God. So any area of disobedience in our lives, where we are willfully refusing God’s control, is part of our heart that is closed to God. It is half-hearted love, instead of loving God with all our heart.

 

Next I want to look at what it means to love God with all your soul.

 

Soul is not nearly as easy to understand as heart is, wouldn’t you agree? We don’t say, “I soul you,” or “I love you with all my soul,” do we? So, what does it mean to love God with all our soul? In researching the original meanings of the word “soul” in Scripture, one author put it this way:

 

“To love God with all your soul means that you will love him in the way you live, in the choices you make, in the behavior and lifestyle you adopt.” 

 

Our soul is our innermost being—it is the real us. It defines who we are. With our soul we decide how we will live, what we will or won’t do, what guidelines we use to make choices and decisions.

 

Let me try to illustrate this: If you have a child and this child declares that he or she truly loves you, says all the right words, gives kisses and hugs, but then this same child refuses to obey you and deliberately does what he or she knows will displease you, are you impressed with their expressions of love? Which would you rather have—all those empty words or obedience?

 

I used to teasingly accuse my mother of loving my brother Roger—the middle child—more than she loved me! I knew it wasn’t true, but I would just tease her, and her reply was always the same: “I didn’t love him any more, but Roger just minded me.” That’s a southern expression for Roger just obeyed me.  Roger was an easier child to raise because he just did what Mom asked without hesitation.

 

Loving God with all your soul means you mind him—you obey him. John wrote: “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). Loving God with all your soul is demonstrated by your obedience, your lifestyle, the choices you make. Do the people you live with and work with know that you love God by the way you live? 

 

Then, we have to ask ourselves if we love God with all our mind. Loving God with your mind means you use your mind to bring him honor and glory, and you keep your mind pure. We love God with our minds by filling our minds with thoughts of God, with good input that enlarges our understanding of God.

 

What do you put into your mind each day? Recently our pastor challenged our congregation to read the New Testament through in ten weeks, which would mean reading four chapters a day for ten weeks. I was amazed to see how many people thought that was asking so much. It takes approximately fifteen to twenty minutes to read four chapters, and is it asking too much for a disciple of Jesus Christ to spend that much time each day putting the truth of God’s Word into our minds? It’s less than a half-hour television program; it’s less than one quarter of a football game; it’s less than the time most people spend reading things on-line. Yet, we don’t think anything about devoting that amount of time to other things. If we love God with all of our minds, it would be evident in how much time we devote to reading the Bible.

 

God gave us all minds, and it’s true that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. So, if I love God with all my mind, then I want to use that mind to its potential and not waste that mind-power God gave me. That means I do things to improve my mind, reading good material, getting more education—anything I can do to use my mind more effectively for God.

 

And then, loving God with all my mind surely must mean that I learn to bring my thoughts into captivity and make them obedient to Christ. It means that I have the mind-control of God’s Spirit, putting boundaries on where I allow my thoughts to go, keeping them in line with God’s principles. This is the topic I cover in great detail in my new DVD Bible study, Think About What You Think About.

 

Finally, what does it mean to love God with all our strength? This one is easy to figure out; it just means we are using our strength and our energy in service to God by serving others. We love God with our strength when we are involved in the lives of others; when we actually get tired quite often because we’re serving God. God doesn’t expect us to burn-out in service to him; but if we love him with all our strength, we will be physically involved in service to others, and we will be tired at times.

 

Loving God with all my strength means there’s no room for laziness in my life; I can’t wait for others to do things. When someone needs help, I think first of what I can do to help them. We have a Hope Network in our church where emails are sent to those who are a part of the network, telling us of some need that exists and asking if we can meet the need. Recently there was a need to buy some school uniforms for a teenager. I don’t have a teenager. I haven’t bought clothes for teenagers in years! So my first thought was that someone else would be the right person to do that.

 

But the Spirit of God convicted me, and I thought, “Why can’t you do this?” There was no good reason, so I volunteered and was able to help that young girl. Isn’t it true that we just think these acts of service are for somebody else to do, but if we love God with our strength, then responding to needs and serving others is how we show it. We use our strength to love God. 

 

As James wrote: “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do” (James 2:18).

 

Have you ever played the “How much do you love me?” game with a young child? When you ask a child that question, they usually respond by throwing their arms open wide and saying, “I love you this much,” as if their love could be measured! Well, what if God had a measuring stick that revealed how much we really love God. Jesus said that the greatest priority for us is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and while that may be a challenge that we’ll never totally achieve in this life, I want to be moving in that direction everyday, don’t you? Let’s get serious about loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Join us for the 25^th Annual Weekend Getaway – April 19-21, 2013. The Theme is: The Life You Were Meant To Live. Kay Arthur is our Special Guest Speaker. She has an exciting and practical approach to the Scriptures. Come and learn from her and Mary, enjoy worship music, relevant workshops, great food and fellowship too. Don’t miss out. Register today at www.christianworkingwoman.org or call our office at 630-462-0552