After pointing us back to the very reason for our devotion, love, Jesus next outlines for us what that devotion looks like (Matt 22). He highlights important areas of our life that need to be submitted to God in order to love him as the Lord of our lives – our God. He instructs us to love God with all our heart, soul and mind.
With all. Jesus shows us that in order to be devoted to God we must love him with all that we have. All the various parts of our life must honour and point towards our incredible God. It’s a reminder that everything comes from God and so everything must be given to God. In all things we do God must be first – loving God must come first.
In Luke 14, Jesus says
“If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.”
Jesus isn’t actually telling us to hate everyone – in fact we will discuss in part 4 that he tells us to love one another. Instead he is using an exaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally to make the point that we must love God so much more than anyone else – so much so that our love for others else pales by comparison.
Your Heart
Jesus goes on in his answer to give us some indication as to what loving God with all looks like. He tells us to love God with all of our heart. I think he records this first as it is the most important of the three – Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our hearts above everything else because everything we do flows from it. Our heart is the part of us that wants, that desires (Ps 37:4). It is the part of us from which our passions, our likes, our dislikes come. Jesus is telling us that to love God with all involves choosing to align our desires with God’s. Love what he loves. Hate what he hates. Celebrate what he celebrates. Reject what he rejects.
Proverbs 6 tells us that there are seven things God hates: “…eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.”
Self-importance, pride and arrogance
All we are is from God – we are all equal in his sight and we should boast in nothing but Jesus. The converse is that he loves acceptance and freedom.Lies
This is repeated twice, distinguishing between lies of the tongue and of the mouth – lies concerning the truth of God and lies we tell concerning others (pointing back towards the two greatest commandments).
Proverbs 18:21 says “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” God hates when he is not spoken of truthfully, when we deny him, or speak wrongfully on his “behalf”, bearing false witness. He also hates it when we lie about others, spreading slander and gossip.
Because truth brings life. Whilst lies bring death and destruction, whether that is spiritual or due to the entanglement that gossip and slander ultimately bring.
God loves truth and justice. He loves when we speak highly of him and others. He loves when we defend what is right and good and true.Hands that murder the innocent
This may seem an obvious one – thou shalt not murder. And although this is obviously the case, 1 John 3:15 states that anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart.
God sees hate as he sees murder. Therefore God loves those who love others, who protect others, who bring life to those around them rather than death.Hearts that plot evil
In Proverbs 12:20 it describes those who plot evil as having deceit in their hearts. God hates dishonesty, deception and corruption.
We know God hates lying, but plotting evil, plotting deceit suggests something different. It indicates premeditated planned concealment and distortion of the truth. It suggests not a spur of the moment, accidental mess-up but a thought-out scheme to mislead others for selfish gain – not discounting the consequences but actively leading others into recklessness. Greed, abuse of power.
As Psalm 140 puts it “those who plot evil in their hearts stir up trouble all day long.” They actively seek to cause disharmony and trouble. Or as Alfred in Batman: The Dark Night put it they “just wanna watch the world burn”. The contrary is that God loves when we have a heart that plans for good. When we plan to bring about truth and honesty. When we sow peace rather than cause trouble. When we lead people out of darkness into light.Feet that race to do wrong
God hates when we race into doing things that we shouldn’t. Note the word race, not stumble. I think it’s important to make the distinction first between making mistakes and rushing head first into doing something wrong knowing exactly where you are headed. Neither is good. But God hates the second.
He hates when we chose actively to disobey him and choose sin over what is right and good and kind. God hates when we pursue sin because God hates sin.
In contrast God loves when we choose what is right. When we take time to make sure we are on the right path and we guard ourselves from being quick to rush into something that we will regret.
As James puts it let us be slow to speak and slow to anger. Think about what we say before we say it. Think about what we do before we do it. Less hot-headed.A troublemaker who sows discord in a family
Our natural family. And also our church family. And this doesn’t have to just be through lies (although it often is) but it may be truth, or opinion, or just plain old gossip. But if it is to serve your purpose and is not in the best interest of the family then God hates it.
He hates it when we cause disharmony, conflict and tension. He hates persecution and bullying. But he loves it when we encourage, build up and support.
For us to love God with all our heart, we must love peace, joy, freedom, and generosity. We must hate persecution, inequality, famine, injustice. Love what brings life. Hate what destroys life. As we start to love the way God loves, learn to choose his desires over our own, ours hearts align with his and we are on the right track to loving God with all of our heart.
Your Soul
Jesus then moves on to the importance of loving God with all of our soul. Jeremiah 29:13 says:
“Praise the lord, oh my soul. All my inmost being praise his holy name.”
Jesus is instructing us that to love God with everything we have we must learn to praise God from our very core, the centre of what makes us who we are. To love God with all our soul is to love God by praising him, worshipping him with everything we have, in everything we do.
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” – John 4:23
The dictionary definition of worship is “great admiration or devotion shown towards a person or principle” – worship is the outpouring of our love, our devotion, to God and we are to prioritise this in everything we do. True worshippers, as John describes, worship in spirit and in truth. It doesn’t matter who you are, it matters how you live a life devoted to him. Devoted in spirit and devoted to truth – through relationship with him living an authentic, God-centred life.
Worship is about God, who he is, what he has done for us. It brings us back to the number one priority in our lives and sets our focus on higher things – can you see a pattern here? Loving God with all our soul is keeping him in the position of king in our lives and letting him have the authority back that is rightfully his.
And because God is good there is a promise that when we do this there is power in true worship. Ephesians 1: 19-20 says the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us. Worship is about God but it benefits us too because by drawing closer to God we are transformed more and more into his very image.
Your Mind
Finally Jesus addresses the need for us to love God with all of our mind. Romans 12:12 says:
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..”
In the same way that to love God with all of our heart is to align our desires with him, to love him with all of our minds is to align our thoughts with his – let him transform and renew our thoughts. We must begin to think as he thinks, understand as he understands. His wisdom, his decisions, his way.
How do we renew our minds? Well Paul sets it out for us in Philippians 4:8-9. He says:
“…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me – practice these things and the God of peace will be with you.”
It’s simple but not always easy. Paul tells us that we must set our thoughts on those things that are good, true, noble, right, lovely, admirable. Dwell on God’s word – we know that this is truth and this is a good place to start. But be careful what else you allow to influence your thoughts –
What are you watching on TV? What music are you listening to? What books are you reading? Who are you allowing to speak into your life? Are they true, noble, right, lovely and admirable?
These verses are a very basic but helpful checklist in determining if what you are allowing into your thoughts is helping to renew your mind or may be hindering your transformation.
And there’s a promise. Romans 12:12 says that by transforming and renewing our minds we are “able to test and approve what Gods will is – his good pleasing and perfect will.”
Want to know God’s plans for you? I know I do because his plans far outweigh my own. I want to love God with all of my mind because His plans succeed where mine fail.
Your strength
One final point. In Luke’s description of this encounter he records a final requirement for loving God with all – strength. He acknowledges that to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind is going to take an enormous amount of strength, something that none of us will ever be able to achieve on our own. In Nehemiah 8 it emphasises that the joy of the lord is our strength. Our strength comes from God himself and in our weaknesses, in the parts where we mess up and where we fail, he is made strong. We can’t do any of this in our own strength but with his strength we can do all (Philippians 4:13).
Thank you that you are so incredible that I can’t help but want to love you with all I have and all I am.
Help me to love you with all my heart, soul and mind.
Align my desires with yours, be the centre of everything I do and transform me by the renewing of my mind.
Thank you that even though I cannot do this in my own strength, you promise that in you I can do all things.
Through ever increasing devotion may I live out your plans, not mine, every day of my life.
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