Loving God
What does it mean to Love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength?
Before asking the question “what does it mean to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?” firstly, let us understand the meaning of the word “Love” in our passage (Mark 12:29-30) as this is at the heart of our question. The word for love in the Greek (Agape) is a particular kind of love. It does not just mean some kind of transient feeling of affection or desire towards someone or something, but is far deeper than that. 'Agape' love is a self-giving love, and implies not just a desire or feeling, but a decision of the will to be committed to someone or something. It is a love that endures even when times are difficult and feelings may not remain as they once were, and involves a total commitment on the part of the one who is loving the other. This is the kind of love that God has for us, which will become very important for us later in this article. Having defined what love is in this context, let’s ask, “what did Jesus mean when he said, “love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength”? An easy way to answer this is to say that Jesus is clearly meaning that we love God with everything that we are, above everyone else, and above everything else. We are to commit everything to God, and bring everything under His control, giving ourselves to Him entirely for the rest of our lives. More specifically, there are a number of areas covered by these four words (i.e. hear, mind, soul and strength) - they imply that we should love God with all of the following:
- our Desires – that we conform our desires to those which will please and honor God
- our Affections - that we love those things that God loves
- our Purposes - that we pursue those things that God would have us pursue
- our Will - that we choose that which is good in our lives
- our Feelings - that we subject our feelings to the truth of God’s Word
- our Character - that we pursue holiness, godliness, and purity
- our Time – that we spend our time wisely
- our Money – that we spend our money with accountability to God
- our Thoughts - that we meditate on the truth of God’s Word, and live every day in the light of it.
- our Talents – that we willfully use our talents for the glory of God.
This means that the love we’re called to must be wholehearted, life-encompassing, community-impacting, exclusive commitment to our God. This truth means that every closet of our lives needs to be opened for cleaning, and every relationship in our lives must be influenced. This call to love God this way destroys any option of being one person at church and another person at work. What you do on the internet needs to be just as pure as what you do in Bible-reading. The way we talk to our parents needs to be as wholesome as the way we talk to our pastors. There needs to be an authentic love for God that starts with God-oriented affections, desires, and thoughts, that permeates our speaking and behavior, and then influences the way we spend our money and how we dress, and drive, and our forms of entertainment. Whether we’re eating or singing, jogging or blogging, texting or drawing, love for God is to be in action and seen.
Does this seem like a tall order to you? Absolutely it should - this is the first and the greatest commandment, and is the pinnacle of what it means to be a Christian! All through the Bible we’re shown that God isn’t after half-hearted disciples - people who will honor Him with some of their time, money and affection - God wants fully committed, cross-bearing people who will give absolutely everything for Him.