Love God: With All Your Strength
This week we are completing looking at the greatest commandment, and we are talking about loving God with all your strength.
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” – Mark 12:30
Strength here, in Greek, is ischus, which means forcefulness, ability, might, power
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” – Deuteronomy 6:5
Might here, in Hebrew, is me'ôd, which means force, muchness, power
Here we are looking at the final aspect of loving God, strength. Everything before this has been a bit theoretical. We feel love and think about love and choose love, but strength becomes far more practical. It’s great to do all of those things, but loving God also involves action.
There’s an old saying and a song that says “Love is a verb.” A verb is an action word, and while technically “choose” “think” and “feel” are all verbs, I want to think about this in a more practical aspect.
When you love someone, whether that be a significant other, a family member, a friend, you show that love through action. There’s another saying, “Talk is cheap,” which means that it’s easy to say you feel a certain way or believe a certain thing, but it’s far more difficult, and thus evident of your true feelings/beliefs, when it comes to action.
James 1:22-27 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
This is an intense verse that, I think, cuts to the heart of a lot of people.
There are a lot of people in the world, especially in America, who would be considered “hearers and not doers” They come to church because it’s what they are supposed to do and what they have done all their lives, but they’re not engaged when they’re there. They are on their phones, scrolling social media, playing games, checking sports scores, etc… or they’re sleeping, or they’re thinking about a million different things, and when they go home, they have no idea what was talked about or what the main message was. They also don’t spend any time on their own studying the Bible or praying, and there is very little, if any, evidence in their life of someone who has had a heart or mind or life that is transformed and renewed by God. You would never know, by looking at their life, the things they do, the activities they participate in, the way they respond to people or situations, that they love God.
The truth is that, loving God with your heart and mind is easy, loving him with your soul is a bit harder, and loving him with your strength can be difficult, but it’s part of the whole package. Loving God with all your strength means that you don’t merely gain head knowledge of God, but you actually put what you learned into action. You change your behavior. You sacrifice. You help people.
In Matthew, Jesus talks about all the people who fed him, clothed him, gave him something to drink, cared for him when was sick, and visited him in prison and those who didn’t. When everyone looks confused and says, “We never did, or didn’t, do those things.” He says that whatever they did for “the least of these” they did for Him.
We love God with all our strength when we allow our faith to become action.
In Colossians 3:23 the Bible says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,”
If you love someone, you want to give them your absolute best in what you do. If you are making a meal, or purchasing a gift or cheering them on or doing something for them, you don’t give it a so-so effort. You put everything into it, and in the same way, we can, and should, love God with all our strength by doing our absolute best in everything we do. This doesn’t mean that everything needs to be perfect, but we should do the best that we are able to, not cutting corners, or cheating, or slacking, but working hard as if what we are doing we are doing for the person we love most in the universe.
Finally, we see in Genesis 2:15 – “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” From the beginning of creation, work was a part of life, but it was never meant to be this agonizing thing that everyone dreaded. Have you heard the saying, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”? It’s the concept that when the work you do is something fulfilling it’s not really work. The same can be said of loving God with all our strength. Using your strength can be exhausting and draining. However, when you use your strength in your love of God, first, it’s not as draining, because it’s purposeful, but secondly, God renews it.
Isaiah 40:28-31
“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Just as God is a never ending fount of wisdom and understanding, He is a source of continual strength, and when we love Him, when we stay close to Him, when we exhaust our power and strength in our love for Him, He renews it. He helps us regain our strength.
So, Love God:
Love God with all your strength.
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” – Mark 12:30
Strength here, in Greek, is ischus, which means forcefulness, ability, might, power
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” – Deuteronomy 6:5
Might here, in Hebrew, is me'ôd, which means force, muchness, power
Here we are looking at the final aspect of loving God, strength. Everything before this has been a bit theoretical. We feel love and think about love and choose love, but strength becomes far more practical. It’s great to do all of those things, but loving God also involves action.
There’s an old saying and a song that says “Love is a verb.” A verb is an action word, and while technically “choose” “think” and “feel” are all verbs, I want to think about this in a more practical aspect.
When you love someone, whether that be a significant other, a family member, a friend, you show that love through action. There’s another saying, “Talk is cheap,” which means that it’s easy to say you feel a certain way or believe a certain thing, but it’s far more difficult, and thus evident of your true feelings/beliefs, when it comes to action.
James 1:22-27 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
This is an intense verse that, I think, cuts to the heart of a lot of people.
There are a lot of people in the world, especially in America, who would be considered “hearers and not doers” They come to church because it’s what they are supposed to do and what they have done all their lives, but they’re not engaged when they’re there. They are on their phones, scrolling social media, playing games, checking sports scores, etc… or they’re sleeping, or they’re thinking about a million different things, and when they go home, they have no idea what was talked about or what the main message was. They also don’t spend any time on their own studying the Bible or praying, and there is very little, if any, evidence in their life of someone who has had a heart or mind or life that is transformed and renewed by God. You would never know, by looking at their life, the things they do, the activities they participate in, the way they respond to people or situations, that they love God.
The truth is that, loving God with your heart and mind is easy, loving him with your soul is a bit harder, and loving him with your strength can be difficult, but it’s part of the whole package. Loving God with all your strength means that you don’t merely gain head knowledge of God, but you actually put what you learned into action. You change your behavior. You sacrifice. You help people.
In Matthew, Jesus talks about all the people who fed him, clothed him, gave him something to drink, cared for him when was sick, and visited him in prison and those who didn’t. When everyone looks confused and says, “We never did, or didn’t, do those things.” He says that whatever they did for “the least of these” they did for Him.
We love God with all our strength when we allow our faith to become action.
In Colossians 3:23 the Bible says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,”
If you love someone, you want to give them your absolute best in what you do. If you are making a meal, or purchasing a gift or cheering them on or doing something for them, you don’t give it a so-so effort. You put everything into it, and in the same way, we can, and should, love God with all our strength by doing our absolute best in everything we do. This doesn’t mean that everything needs to be perfect, but we should do the best that we are able to, not cutting corners, or cheating, or slacking, but working hard as if what we are doing we are doing for the person we love most in the universe.
Finally, we see in Genesis 2:15 – “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” From the beginning of creation, work was a part of life, but it was never meant to be this agonizing thing that everyone dreaded. Have you heard the saying, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”? It’s the concept that when the work you do is something fulfilling it’s not really work. The same can be said of loving God with all our strength. Using your strength can be exhausting and draining. However, when you use your strength in your love of God, first, it’s not as draining, because it’s purposeful, but secondly, God renews it.
Isaiah 40:28-31
“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Just as God is a never ending fount of wisdom and understanding, He is a source of continual strength, and when we love Him, when we stay close to Him, when we exhaust our power and strength in our love for Him, He renews it. He helps us regain our strength.
So, Love God:
- With all your heart… Feel that love for Him, let Him flood your emotions, let Him be the one who makes you you.
- With all your soul… Choose to love Him. He won’t force it. Live a life everyday that draws closer to the one who is calling to you. Let your life reflect Him.
- With all your mind… Think about things that glorify and honor God. Rid your mind of dark destructive thoughts, but use your mind to gain knowledge and understanding and wisdom of the world and of God.
- With all your strength… Put this all into action. Do good works. Don’t merely listen to teachings, but do what He calls us to do.
Love God with all your strength.
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