Photos by Matt Brown
Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is the highest calling of our lives—the truth is we were created with a longing to be wholehearted and abandoned, and thus to know the joy of love. There is nothing more satisfying than having the power to give the deepest affection of our heart to God and to be loyal in love. We live life at the fullest in the joy of holy love for God giving ourselves fully to him and receiving all he has for us. We long to possess the power to be abandoned instead of being stuck in boredom, passivity, disloyalty, and compromise which leave us broken and discontent. When God told Abram in the book of Genesis that God himself was his exceeding great reward, God had also promised to make him great, bless him, increase him and make him the father of a great nation and in fact established his covenant with all people through Abram (later Abraham). Despite the incredible earthly honor God would give to Abraham on this earth, God established that he himself was his “exceeding great reward.”
Embracing the Romance of the Gospel
To embrace Christ as our exceeding great reward and love him in return we must understand that the Gospel is a story of romance, passion and desire—believe it or not. The greatest stories on earth are just a glimmer of what we have in Christ. The lengths at which Christ was willing to go for us and the suffering he endured for love is nothing short of extravagant. That fact that God eternal, immortal and invisible would set aside his divinity and humble himself as a Man to suffer, die and embrace us for eternity is beyond my understanding. Throughout Scripture we see glimpses into the heart of God—what he is thinking, what he is feeling and what he is really like. We get a glimpse in the book of Hosea where God shows his faithful steadfast love, as pictured in Hosea and the prostitute, for a people who are unfaithful to him. As a picture God spoke to Hosea the prophet to marry an unfaithful prostitute as a prophetic picture and declaration of the love of God to a people who continually go astray. Throughout Scripture God compares his love for us to a bride and bridegroom—Isaiah also catches a glimpse into the love of God’s heart in chapter 62 when he writes and compares God’s affection to a bridegroom rejoicing on his wedding day over his bride. He then says in that same way God will express his love toward us—he, God, will rejoice over us. Jeremiah also echoed God’s heart in chapter 2 when he says, “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the wilderness.” John the Baptist goes so far as to actually introduce Jesus to the nation of Israel as the bridegroom who has a bride when he stated, “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.” Going further, Jesus himself spoke of himself as a bridegroom when he stated in Matthew 9:15, “Jesus answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.’” Paul taking it further stated, “I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him,” and again in Ephesians, “’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”
By weaving the beauty of his love for us in Scripture and comparing it to that of a bride and bridegroom, God is calling us to embrace his affection and love him in return. The Lord throughout Scripture is revealing and calling for those who would love him with all their hearts as a bride her husband in abandon, following him where he goes, giving of ourselves, our time, talent, treasure, affections and obedience at all costs.
Loving God Is Our Response
According to the Scripture, it takes God to love God. By that statement I mean that it is only by the power that God gives the human heart, by his grace and the revelation he imparts to us that we can grow in love and heartfelt affection for God. To love and know an invisible God takes supernatural ability, according to Romans 5:5, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,” and in Ephesians 3, Paul prays that God would give s the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. The truth is, our ability to love God is directly related to his love for us in that we love because he first loved us as we see in 1 John. AW Tozer writes of the importance of Godward love when he said, “Not only are we all in process of becoming; WE ARE BECOMING WHAT WE LOVE. We are to a large degree the sum of our loves and we will of moral necessity grow into the image of what we love most. Our loves changes, molds and transforms us. What we love is therefore not a small matter to be lightly shrugged off; rather it is of present, critical and everlasting importance. It is prophetic of our future. It tells us what we shall be, and so predicts accurately our eternal destiny. Loving the wrong objects twists and deforms the life and makes it impossible for that life to image the Lord Jesus Christ. This furnishes in part a rational explanation for the first and greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” To become like God is and must be the supreme goal of all moral creatures. This is the reason for their existence, and apart from this reason there can be no excuse found for existence. (Thus the hopelessness of our day.)”
Loving God for His Beauty
When King David described in the book of Psalms the supreme passion of his life, it wasn’t power, military victory, earthly success or wealth, it was his undying love and passion to look upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. David’s longing heart to see and know the heart of God inspires us today. What does it mean to see the beauty or glory of the Lord? David both gazed on God, and He inquired of God according to Psalm 27:4. We gaze on God by the meditation of the Word specifically related to the beauty of his emotions and the beauty of his throne. We inquire of God by prayer, petition and the communion of the Spirit. We do this best when we have a paradigm of a God who is a beautiful. Revelation Chapters 4-5 give us a glimpse into the beauty of God’s throne—by meditating in the Word we begin to fall in love and our hearts become fascinated with him as he grants us revelation into his heart. The revelation of God’s beauty is essential in our quest to live holy before God. We resist sin far better when God fascinates our hearts. When the Holy Spirit reveals the Father and the Son to our hearts, our hearts become fascinated and exhilarated with God. There is no greater pleasure in the human experience than when God reveals God to the human spirit. Moses prayed to see God’s glory and God answered Moses and promised to proclaim His name to Moses. When God proclaimed His name, He was proclaiming His character and His personality, in other words, God promised to manifest His personality to Moses. The way in which God reveals His glory or beauty to us is by revealing His heart and His personality.
Loving God with All Our Heart
Loving God with all our heart means to love him with all our affections and our emotions. We “set” our affections on anything we choose. We can determine some of our emotions by the setting of the heart—we change our mind and God changes our heart. Our emotions will follow whatever we set ourselves to pursue—we can set our heart to be filled with zeal for God. The Psalmist wrote, “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him.” (Psalm 91:14)
Another way to intentionally set our affections to love Jesus is to remove everything that diminishes our affections for him like bitterness, lust and being over stimulated by entertainment. This requires that we focus on pursuing love for Jesus more than gaining things and influence. David declared that he would love God and therefore set the intention of his heart to love God. In Psalm 18:1 he said, “I will love You, O Lord, my strength.” John the Apostle leaned on Jesus’ heart or set his heart to love and be as near to Him as possible. Likewise, we can set our heart to love Him by committing to walk in obedience even when it is costly. We also set our heart on loving God by regularly asking for supernatural help to love Jesus. Ask God to pour his love for Jesus into your heart and to direct the reigns of your heart into His love—”May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God. (2 Thessalonians. 3:5)
Loving God With Our Souls
To love God with all our soul means to love him with our personality which is expressed mostly through our speech. When we determine to express our personality by speaking and acting in a way that enhances not diminishes love we express love for God in doing so. It actually moves God’s heart when we control ourselves from cutting down someone and instead choose to lift them up and encourage them. That is the difference between life and death—which as Proverbs tells us is in the tongue.
The most common way to use our soul to quench love is by grieving the Spirit by our words which in turns diminishes our ability to receive from God in the same measure. We walk in love by purifying our speech (Eph. 5:1-6) rather than diminishing love by wrong speech that affects our inner man. For example, when we speak in dishonoring ways about the saints the Scripture tells us we are acting worldly and immature. We are to renounce grumbling and evil speaking against one another and rather encourage one another, singing and making music in our hearts to the Lord.
The important thing however is that when we do fail in this our confession is not that we are a hopeless hypocrite nor are we despised by God. Rather we confess that we are loved by God and we are a lover of God, therefore this defines us and makes us successful. We are not defined by failure or by our accomplishments. By choosing to live in our spiritual identity of being loved and loving God in return our lives become secure in God rather than wrapped up in our appearance or performance before people. This is the principle of living before an audience of One. Not that we are not accountable and connected to people—that is absolutely vital to a vibrant Christian life. But we are also not devastated or puffed up by the rejection or the approval of people. Rather than needing affirmation from people, we receive it directly from God and affirm our agreement with him by our confession even when we don’t feel it—our emotions will catch up with the confession. A great way to start is by saying to God, “Jesus, I am Your beloved, Your favorite one, a disciple You love.” In a similar way John the Apostle described himself in his Gospel— “Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’” John 21:7.
To love God with all our soul means to love him with our personality which is expressed mostly through our speech. When we determine to express our personality by speaking and acting in a way that enhances not diminishes love we express love for God in doing so. It actually moves God’s heart when we control ourselves from cutting down someone and instead choose to lift them up and encourage them. That is the difference between life and death—which as Proverbs tells us is in the tongue.
The most common way to use our soul to quench love is by grieving the Spirit by our words which in turns diminishes our ability to receive from God in the same measure. We walk in love by purifying our speech (Eph. 5:1-6) rather than diminishing love by wrong speech that affects our inner man. For example, when we speak in dishonoring ways about the saints the Scripture tells us we are acting worldly and immature. We are to renounce grumbling and evil speaking against one another and rather encourage one another, singing and making music in our hearts to the Lord.
The important thing however is that when we do fail in this our confession is not that we are a hopeless hypocrite nor are we despised by God. Rather we confess that we are loved by God and we are a lover of God, therefore this defines us and makes us successful. We are not defined by failure or by our accomplishments. By choosing to live in our spiritual identity of being loved and loving God in return our lives become secure in God rather than wrapped up in our appearance or performance before people. This is the principle of living before an audience of One. Not that we are not accountable and connected to people—that is absolutely vital to a vibrant Christian life. But we are also not devastated or puffed up by the rejection or the approval of people. Rather than needing affirmation from people, we receive it directly from God and affirm our agreement with him by our confession even when we don’t feel it—our emotions will catch up with the confession. A great way to start is by saying to God, “Jesus, I am Your beloved, Your favorite one, a disciple You love.” In a similar way John the Apostle described himself in his Gospel— “Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’” John 21:7.
Loving God With All Our Minds
To love God with all our mind we must actively fill our minds with long and loving meditation on God’s Word and resist putting anything in our minds that diminishes love for Jesus and quenches the Holy Spirit.
To love God with all our mind we must actively fill our minds with long and loving meditation on God’s Word and resist putting anything in our minds that diminishes love for Jesus and quenches the Holy Spirit.
To love God with all of our mind is our decision to take time to fill our mind with God’s word and to agree with biblical paradigms of God. We gain revelation of God’s love by meditating on it from God’s Word. We position ourselves to receive by sitting long hours before God in his Word.
Loving God With Our Strength
Loving God with all our strength and with our resources includes time, money, talents, reputation and influence.
Loving God with all our strength and with our resources includes time, money, talents, reputation and influence.
Loving God With Our Time
Does anything really speak more loudly to someone regarding your love for them and the way you feel about them than the time you spend with that person? When we slow our lives down just a bit and give God our time, which isn’t always easy but is necessary, we honor God and he is able to work in and through us. As his partners here on earth and his ambassadors, we must daily come to him and be filled with the Spirit and filled with faith and love to represent him truly. As with the nature of any love relationship, time is essential to developing it. Spending time getting to know Christ is the essence of eternal life—to know him. It is the “good part” that Mary of Bethany choose and Jesus declared would not be taken from her. Give God an offering today of time, sacrifice that TV show, that Facebook update and even that meal to come away with the Lord, receive his love and give him your love in worship and prayer. Quiet yourself before him and allow him to touch your heart through meditation on his Word.
Loving God With Our Treasure
You can’t serve both God and money is how Jesus described the relationship with earthly riches. As the saying goes money makes a poor master, but a good servant. When we love God and honor him with our finances by making him our treasure and pursuit of life, not more stuff, it moves the heart of God. According to Scripture when we make him our great Treasure rather than earthly pursuits he responds and blesses us for it. The Scripture explains that when we seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness he will add everything else to us. If God who owns all silver and gold and all things on the earth makes a promise like that, should we not trust him? So seek him first and expect his blessing. As Hebrews states, God rewards of those who diligently seek him. As C.S. Lewis said, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Loving God With Our Talent
For from him and to him and through him are all things. When the very breathe we breath is from him, we present our very being to him to use as he pleases. Paul explained to the Roman church that they were to present their very bodies and all its members to the Lord as a living sacrifice, for this is reasonable and it is your very act of worship. He gave his all for us and we give our all for him. How could we offer him half hearted love when he spared no expense for us? As the elders and living creatures around his throne never stop saying—he is holy and he is worthy. Our lives are meant to be one with his, this is the invitation to the divine romance.
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