All We Are

I apologize for me taking so long to post again. I am not terribly consistent. Did good for a while there, but I have a good excuse in that exams are coming up. But, I will try to post as much as possible in the weeks ahead considering it is my last bit of time here.Today I read Mark 12, and again I am just blown away by Jesus' teachings. Funny I would even say that but its true. I know he was the Christ, and he was God in the flesh but... WOW you can just see how brilliant He is! How brilliant God is! So, needless to say that Mark is quickly rising on my favorite books of the Bible chart.The part that really stuck out at me is a verse that, again I have heard over and over again. But, just think about the implications of what Jesus is saying and what this calls from us. Verses 28-30 say,

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

The most important thing is in our lives is loving the Lord. But, not just with all our hearts, we are called to love God with all our minds, all our souls, and all our strength. We are to completely and utterly love God with all we are, and not hold anything back or allow anything to hinder our love for the Lord. Let's break down the 4 loves that are described above.

Love the Lord with all your Heart:
This is a cliche term we here at church all the time. Refering to accepting God into our "hearts" and such. It is well known that the seat of emotion within modern times is the heart, and that romantic love is often times associated with the heart. Pastor David Akin of Southeastern seminary said that it has been heard over the years that people refer to Christ as their "lover", in almost a romantic sense. But, I believe what is going on here is that God and Jesus should be able to provoke the same sort of reaction from us in the sense of passion and persuit that a human lover would provoke. In the sense of longing and persuing. We should persue the Lord with all we are, we should long for His presence, to hear His voice, and to feel His touch. I know that I am lacking HIGHLY in this area. Often times I have to make myself have quiet times, and I do it because I know that I should. But, I almost always afterwards ask myself, "why in the world did I want to put that off?"

Love the Lord with all our Soul:
This is the place of reverence. This is the seat of who we are, the soul. This is the part of us that sets us apart from animals and from other creatures, the fact that we have a soul. I believe this means that God should be the center of our daily lives. That everyday we should be seeking out ways to love God and to share that love for others. What is in the seat of worship in our lives? This verse basically says that only God should be there, and that nothing else can be there. We are to love the Lord with all our soul, and give him that place within us.

Love the Lord with all you Mind:
Bruce Ashford said that Christians should be the tops in all their fields. That they should aspire to be the greatest and work hard to do that. Why? Because we are called to love the Lord with all our minds. If God has given you an ability to do something particularly well, isn't the act of honing that ability an act of worship (if the ultimate goal is to give God the glory of course). Christians really should be the tops of their fields, and others should be asking themselves... wow, what drives this guy? Personally... I am a slacker WAY more often then not, so believe me this hit me hard. We also should be filling our mind with things of Him, and not a bunch of worthless knowledge. We should be using our minds for scripture memorization and reading the word and books. Gosh I feel like a hypocrite writing this becasue I know how often I put off reading biblical books and learning about God. I fill my mind so much with things like video games, or news or random facts. But our minds should be on things of God... this is commanded.

Love the Lord with all our Strength:
Is loving the Lord easy? NO!!! Let NOBODY tell you otherwise. It goes against our very sinful nature so of course it can be difficult. It often time can drain us to do the right thing and it can require a good bit of our resources to do. But, we are called to love our Lord with all our strength. To use every drop of ourselves to love Him and aspire to do His work. It may be draining but God promises to fill us up. Maybe not immediatly, but he promises. In Isiah 40:31 it says,

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Give Him it all, cause he will fill you back up, and will allow you to truely soar.

We are called to LOVE the Lord with all of us. It's is the only thing that He truely deserves, and also Jesus says that this is the cheif commandment. A hard command? Yes. But, what better place is there then within the will of the Lord? No matter how hard that may be.


Sorry that was a bit long winded. To be honest I probably could have written a good bit more about this part of Mark but then nobody would actually read it, and also I need sleep.