Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
One of our "assignments" during my Bible study this week was to try verse mapping. I find the concept to be a great way to study a verse. It helps to truly understand it, apply it to your life and it helps you to remember it in a way that is meaningful to you.
For this verse, I chose a few words that stand out to me: LOVE, YOUR, WITH ALL, and then [HEART, SOUL, STRENGTH]
LOVE is commanded by the Lord; the first and greatest commandment, something we do, an action and intense desire; something to thrive on. In 1 Kings, Solomon 'showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father, David'. Psalm 136 says His love endures forever and in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we are told all the things that love is and is not but verse 13 states, "And now these three remain; faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. The word love is mentioned more than 500 times in the Bible, this word is so important it has it's own chapter and this is the very thing we are commanded to do to the Lord!!!
YOUR simply put means something personal, mine, accessible and not untouchable. He is the God of the universe, but he is MY God. As the hymn goes, "And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tell me I am His own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known" God knows ME, so much so that we can have joy and conversation and walks. I don't know about you, but that seems like a pretty close relationship, not someone you should be afraid to go to or spend time with.
WITH ALL means complete surrender, immerse, entire or the whole, or when a little just won't do. Love in itself is a pretty powerful word and can be a verb, a noun or an adjective in this verse, it is not to be taken lightly. We are to completely immerse ourselves, give our entire being into loving God. That is no small request. Easy enough, but not to be taken lightly.
Now the HEART is our life force, the very thing that keeps us alive physically. where your passion is, what drives us to do something. Proverbs 4:23 "guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it". A persons hearts reveals the image of who he really is at deeper level than the surface. It can affect the way we see things, the way we think and feel about things and our will. Matthew 9:4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, "why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?" Jeremiah 17:9 "the heart is deceitful". Our heart allows us to be exposed and vulnerable. Psalm 37:4 says "delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" and Hebrews 4:12b says "it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the hearts"
SOUL is a person's moral or emotional nature; a sense of identity. A person's total self and regarded as a distinct separate entity from the body or the spiritual part of a human. Look at Matthew 10:28 "Do not be afraid of those kill the body but cannot kill the soul"
STRENGTH is the physical power and energy, source of power or force, intensity. Courage, power of reason, influence or authority. We are told that our strength comes from the Lord but with this power, we are to use that authority or influence to love God. Joshua was told to 'Be strong and Courageous', Joshua 1:9, Paul says that 'the Lord stood by me and strengthened me' 1 Timothy 4:17 and David 'strengthened himself in the Lord his God'. 1 Samuel 30:6.
Deuteronomy 6:5 is a powerful verse, indeed. It is not something we can do haphazardly. It requires thought, intellect, emotion, authority and intensity; all rolled up into a relationship that can be as natural as breathing if we allow it.
Just imagine how important breathing is to our body, we need it, we desire it and we want it. Unless we are ill with some respiratory disease or condition, we don't even think about it. It just happens. Now I am over weight and seriously out of shape. I have been saying that I am going to run a 5K for 2 years and have yet to do it. I start and it is hard, I have a hard time breathing. The longer I stay with it, the easier it becomes, I am be bopping along, enjoying the progress, then something happens and I stop only to loose all the progress I had made. After several months, I may start again, Beginning at the beginning means struggling to condition my body and lungs for the intensity of breathing while running.
With the analogy of training to run, I can relate to this verse. When we first find and accept Jesus, Loving Him can be as easy as sitting on the couch relaxing and breathing, but then a crisis happens and our faith is tested. If we continue to Love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength and not waiver, we will press on toward the goal but if we give up, turn out backs on him, it may very well feel like we have failed and need to start over again. And when we do, our heavenly Father will be there waiting on us to fall in love again.
Father, help to always love you with all my heart, my soul and strength. Help me to love others as you have instructed us to love you so they may see you through me. I pray that I will always guard my heart against that which is displeasing to you, and keep my eyes focused on heavenly things. Help me to be strong enough to withstand the negative things that constantly bombard our lives every day so that I may keep my focus on you.
Thank you for loving me enough to die on the cross for my sins so that I may have eternal life with you.
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