Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’” Mark 12:29-30
May 2, 2025
Within Christian circles we may hear that such and such a person loves the Lord. That certainly may be true, but how would I know if I loved God? Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment. Actually, it was a “gotcha” question instigated by the Pharisees who, out of the 613 commandments in the Old Testament, wanted to entrap Jesus into a supposed conflict with Moses and in so doing discredit Jesus. Immediately, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:4. God alone deserves our unrivaled love because He alone is God and has demonstrated the perfection of His love to us. All other gods are fictions. This is a love which seeks to please God even when the actions are contrary to how one feels. Love is knowing what God expects us to do, and doing it. Emotion will ride with such love. The adjective, whole/all, means that love is to be expressed toward God with the entirety of our being. How intense by my love for God? The urgency and breadth of such love is to come through four ways. Are you prepared to test yourself? Pray and ask God how much you love Him. We can examine ourselves with the spiritual MRI of four words.
H
“Lord, I want to know if you are at the center of my life. Show me what you expect of me.”