Love The Lord Your God

VERSE OF THE DAY: ~Matthew 22:35-40 ” Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 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.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Today is a good day to fall in love with Jesus! Oh, wait! I guess that’s true everyday! The interesting thing to note about this commandment from our Lord is that love cannot be forced. I choose to love the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my mind. The book of Deuteronomy where Jesus quotes this from also includes with all my strength. Just a consideration that if I add strength to loving him with all my heart and add strength to loving him with all my soul and add strength to loving him with all my mind then it gives me a better picture of what Jesus is talking about.

It’s interesting to observe how much passion, is expressed in different people’s lives, when it comes to the Lord.  Sometimes I want to let someone know that it’s okay to be passionate even zealous in our relationship with the Lord. What does it look like to love the Lord with all your heart’s strength, with all your mind’s strength, with all your soul’s strength? Can you do an exercise today, and just take a little time to imagine what that might look like to love the Lord with all you have in each of these areas? Maybe it already looks like your daily life? What would the world look like if all who claimed faith in Christ would abandon all and simply love the Lord with everything that we are?  Jesus says that the next greatest commandment is like the first but to love your neighbor as yourself. Try to picture a world where every person loves the Lord and others with such an intense, passionate zeal.

PRAYER: “Lord, I ask you to check my heart and reveal to me everything that comes between me and loving you. Give me the strength and the courage and the faith to love you with all my heart all my mind, all my soul, and all my strength as well I ask you to enlarge my heart with your love for my fellow man. Holy Spirit I give you permission to lead me and to instruct me in the way of God’s love. Amen”

VERSE FOR FEARLESS LIVING!  ~  Haggai 2:5 ‘According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you; do not fear!’