By Patricia Batten

If we truly believe that God, revealed in Jesus Christ, is the one true God who has saved us, we would respond in love and worship. Deuteronomy 6:5 says: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” This is called the greatest commandment. It’s like Moses is saying, “Love the LORD with everything you’ve got.”

Loving God with everything we’ve got means loving Him with our heart, mind, and hands. 

 

Loving God with Our Heart

We love God with our heart through experience. This domain includes feelings, emotions, and attitudes.

Loving God with everything we’ve got means loving Him with our heart, mind, and hands.

Israel demonstrated their love for God by participating in various festivals throughout the course of a year. They followed an agricultural calendar of festivals and feasts that not only celebrated the harvest but also commemorated God’s mighty acts in history.

During the Passover, for instance, they ate food and herbs that reminded them of their ancestors’ flight from Egypt. During the Festival of Booths, they made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where they lived in tents for several days to remind them of their forefathers’ 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. And when they brought a sheep or a pigeon into the Temple court to be slaughtered as a sacrifice to a holy God, they experienced worship of the one true God.

All these and others provided experiences in which their attitudes, values, and emotions were tested and finetuned, which ultimately turned their hearts towards God in love and adoration.

Today, we love God with our hearts in a similar way—by joining corporate worship and experiencing His presence in the midst of His people. Our hearts are filled with joy as we sing hymns and songs that praise Him. The Holy Spirit convicts us as we listen to sermons or celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Our emotions of gratitude are tugged when we witness the baptism of a new believer.

 

Loving God with Our Mind

When we love God with our minds, we make the effort to learn who He is, what He has done, and what God desires of us. One of the best ways to love God with our minds, of course, is to read and study the Bible, through which God has revealed himself to us. This is called special revelation.

God also reveals himself through nature, or general revelation. All truth is God’s truth, so when we study His creation and uncover His truth through exploration of the world around us and through various academic disciplines, we are still loving God with our minds.

Studying God by reading the Bible and by studying the world around us are both ways to love God with our minds.

 

Loving God with Our Hands

God created us as whole beings, and all parts of us are to respond to Him in love. That includes our hands, used here as a metaphor for our outward actions.

To hear meant to obey. To hear God without obeying is to not hear God at all.

We love God through acts of service; James 2:14-26 notes that faith without works is dead. When we engage in a mission trip, serve food to the homeless, help to build a new home for a family, or teach at Sunday school, we are loving God with our hands.

Deuteronomy 6, however, tells us there is one more way to demonstrate our love for God—by obeying Him. When Moses told the Israelites, “Hear, O Israel” (v. 4), he wasn’t simply rounding up the gang. He wasn’t saying, “Listen up, we’re about to get started.” To hear meant to obey. To hear God without obeying is to not hear God at all.

What did Moses want the people to hear and obey? The commandments. Why was this so important? Because obedience demonstrates love for the one true God.

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Why is it important to love God with everything we’ve got? Because He is our God. He is the one who revealed himself to us and gave His all to save us, so we love Him with all we’ve got.

Let us never forget that as followers of Jesus Christ, we’ve been given the priceless gift of the Holy Spirit. This is a gift given to every believer. The Holy Spirit guides us, intercedes for us, comforts us, and teaches us (John 14:26; Romans 8:14,26).

 

Reflect:

  • How do you tend to love God: with your heart, mind, or hands? In which area can you learn to love Him more?
  • Identify an area outside of your comfort zone in which you’d like to grow. What steps can you take to grow in this area?

 

Excerpted and adapted from Discovery Series—Heart, Soul, and Mind: Raising Kids to Know and Love God by Patricia Batten published by Our Daily Bread Ministries

Read Also:

Discovery Series—Heart, Soul, and Mind: Raising Kids to Know and Love God (by Patricia Batten)

What if you could give your children an even stronger foundation to better weather the storms of life? In this booklet, Patricia Batten explores the challenge of raising children in our complicated world. Looking at one of the foundational declarations of faith in God, the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, she pulls out practical guidance for teaching our children who God is, what He has done, and how we can respond to Him.

Our Daily Bread Ministries in Indonesia is supported by the freewill offering of individuals in Indonesia, who through their gifts enable us to continue to bring the life-changing wisdom of the Bible to many here. We are not funded by any church or organisation.