What Does It Mean To Love The Lord Your God?

[Jerry]

I just wanted to start a thread on a topic I have been thinking about and want to tackle in a sermon/devotional.

What does it mean to love the Lord your God as this passage states:

Matthew 22:37-38 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

Luke 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

How do you love God with all your strength?

I will be back later (when I am at work) on a computer that works a little better.

[JerryNumbers]

I just wanted to start a thread on a topic I have been thinking about and want to tackle in a sermon/devotional.

What does it mean to love the Lord your God as this passage states:

Matthew 22:37-38 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

Luke 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

How do you love God with all your strength?

I will be back later (when I am at work) on a computer that works a little better.

Hello other Jerry, welcome back. Don't we have the strength to love some more than others? Our strongest love ought to be towards God.

[Pastor Matt]

How do you love God with all your strength?

Strength here is talking about our physical body.
God gave us bodies, we are to love him with our bodies also. Our bodies needs to always be under control of the Holy Spirit. The first thing that the world sees about us is our bodies. It takes strength to go to church, but we should love the Lord God enough to use our strength to show our love toward Him. It takes strength to live a committed life toward God. That reminds me of the sermon illustration about the chicken and the pig.

Part of this is done by [bible]Romans 12:1[/bible]

[1Timothy115]

I can comment on Matthew...

Matthew 22:37-38 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

This means that you must love the Lord thy God with...

...all thy heart...
...all thy soul...
...all thy mind.

All is all that there is. R. Bell, Oct. 14, 2009

I'll take it further. Before you can "love the Lord thy God" with all there is; He must be "the Lord thy God." Recess is over, its time to face Christ and answer a question presented to our local church congregation during recent meetings.

What think ye of Christ?

[Bakershalfdozen]

Jesus said that if we love Him we will keep His commandments. "All your strength" can be something as simple as "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might". Whatever we are doing that requires our physical strength, we should do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.

[Madeline]

John 14:21 - He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

John 14:23 - Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

OBedience and faith is the best way to show your love to God. God has revealed Himself to me in such ways that my relationship with Him is more intimate than any human relationship that I have ever had, and I have attained such a relationship through OBedience to His words and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Love,
Madeline

[JerryNumbers]

6 And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

2 John 1:6 (KJV)

2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

1 John 5:2-3 (KJV)

20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

1 John 4:20-21 (KJV)

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:7-8 (KJV)

No doubt, one who has not been saved cannot love God, those who know not God knoweth not what true love is. That those who love God will keep His commandments and they will not be grievous to them. I feel sure most lost people would argue against that.

[Jerry]

Thanks for all the replies. Bakers, you thought of the exact passage I was thinking about this morning.

Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Tying that verse together with the one in Ecclesiastes helps partly answer my question. Most people explain the verse in Matthew in the sense of it meaning to love God with all that we are and have - but I wanted to pick apart the four things mentioned: heart, soul, mind, and strength/might.

When I think of loving God with all my heart, the affections come to mind:

Colossians 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

When I think of soul, this verse comes to mind:

Philippians 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

Though I realize that the soul and spirit are not exactly the same, but I think the idea/meaning is the same. Of course, I am posting this because I want to learn more on this topic, so am open to differing opinions here.

Mind - I think of taking all our thoughts captive and thinking on the things of Christ.

But the strength/might part is what got me thinking.

For those who are wondering, I am doing well. Still working at the Gospel Mission, still preaching. Starting to write again. That reminds me, I am going to post a couple of songs I wrote and a friend put to music (if this keyboard with the "o" button missing doesn't drive me nuts first - I can waste a lot of time trying to get that letter to work, so I might not type too fast! When I can get it to work, I hold it down and make a lot of "o"'s, and use them up as I go along...).