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In the King James Version, love is mentioned 310 times, 131 times in the Old Testament and 179 times in the New Testament. When a Pharisee asked Jesus what he thought the greatest commandment was Jesus answered in the book of Matthew “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Those are two things that seem so easy, yet they are some of the most challenging things we can do. The first thing Jesus commands us to do is love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and with all of your mind. How often do we put things in our lives above God? How often do we take matters into our own hands instead of trusting in him? How many times a day do we turn away from him, ignoring his voice, his presence or his love?
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Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. I can think of the many days that I could put work above God. We started the day early to get to work and kept working through the day focused on the money we would earn or the tasks we would complete. We scurried about too busy to pray or give thanks for the accomplishments
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Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. How many times have we jumped head first into a plan we conjured up with a goal of success, without praying for direction? How many times have we held onto our last dollars tight-fisted thinking about my mid-day snack instead of being obedient to God when he prompted us to give it to the random stranger in passing?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is complete surrender. This is having the ability to feel his tender caress in every heartbreaking twist and turn that life gives us. Loving the Lord God with every fiber of our being means we are so focused on him that we can hear the whisper of our name as it parts from his lips and wait for his instructions because we know what he has to say will forever change our lives.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is when you can’t wait to read the endless love letters he left behind for you in the scriptures of old. Or when the fluttering of butterflies overtakes your belly at the near mention of his name. Loving the Lord your God means saying yes to all that is wonderful and leaving behind every dead unfruitful branch in your life knowing that without a shadow of a doubt you were made for more.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and then do it all over again the next day.
What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them!