Part one

Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” (NKJV)

Throughout the Old and New Testament, Scripture reveals the importance of loving God with all of our heart, our soul and our mind. 
I believe when God speaks of the heart, He means He longs for you to love Him freely from your spirit…that thing in you that makes you you.

Loving Him with your soul is loving Him in the deepest part of your human flesh.  Loving Him so much that we long for our flesh to become a new creation, to become Christ-like, to be pure and holy.  Loving Him with your mind, well for me that means loving Him with my thought life.  This is a huge challenge but He would not ask it of us if it were not possible.  In fact He tells us exactly that in Deut. 30:11 For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. (NKJV)

In Exodus 20:1-10 God gave Moses the commandments about loving and respecting God.

In Deuteronomy read His call to love Him our God in the following verses: 4:29; 6:4-5; 10:12; 11:13; 13:3; and one of my favorites: 30:6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (NKJV)  WOW!!  We can even invite God to circumcise our hearts and the hearts of our descendants to love Him.  If you read further you will see that once we get to the place of loving God we enter a cycle of blessing. 

In Joshua (22:5) we read: But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. (NKJV)

The Word tells us that God has “et before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice and holding fast to Him (Deut. 30:19b-20a NASB).

Patricia L. Wenzel
WOC Graduate