Mark 12: 28One of the teachers of the law came and
heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked
him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
32"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
34When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? We have reduced this most important commandment to something more akin to acceptance than love. It is as if we think it is enough to believe God exists. But these words of Jesus reveal a much deeper meaning, an all-encompassing oneness with God that includes some significant statements to us about us as well. So what can we uncover in a deeper examination of this commandment?
First, in order to truly love God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strength, we must be whole ourselves. While on the surface, this may sound like a simple element, the presence of sin in the world due to the fall of man results in internal fragmentation and disconnection. For most of our lives, we are striving to find ourselves – what is termed “self-actualization” in psychological terms – and to create a sense of being whole. We spend a lot of our lives presenting facades, putting on masks, and trying to be what we think people want to see or expect us to be. We can lose ourselves in the process of trying to be acceptable to others, or good enough ourselves to feel worthy of love. Additionally, difficult and painful experiences in our lives are like rocks hitting against our personhood, chipping off pieces of ourselves that get left behind. For some extreme cases, the trauma is so severe, they lose themselves completely, resulting in the soul going into hiding in a protective internal “cave” that becomes a prison. On top of that, we have the “18 inch division” between our head and heart that is considered the longest 18 inches known to man. What we “know” in our heads we often do not “know” in our hearts; in other words, what we think is true often feels false to us, and what we know in our heads is false often feels true to our hearts. And ultimately, we cannot be whole without our Creator, so we need God to complete us, to pick up the pieces of our soul, and to make us whole again.
Second, the only way we can love God with our whole selves is to be our true selves, as God created us to be. We can re-translate the first and greatest commandment as God saying to us, “Be who I made you to be.” Within each of us is some aspect of God’s nature, as we are all made in His image. None of us, except Jesus, holds the entire nature of God within us, which means we are imperfect in our nature. This limitation also means we experience the “downsides” of the element of His nature that He placed within us. As an example of this, in my case, my warrior nature (the face of Jesus standing on the steps of the Temple confronting the Pharisees with their hypocrisy) can be harsh toward others, lacking in the balance of His grace; however, in Jesus the warrior was completed and balanced by His mercy and compassion. Still, my warrior nature reflects one aspect of the face of God. That light, or “diamond” within me, is who He created me to be. When I am born into this sin-based world, my diamond begins to be covered over with dirt – lies from others, false interpretations of my experiences, and generational false beliefs of my family are all examples of the dirt that can cover the diamond within me. If I am living another life, another self, another “face” then I am unable to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. I need God’s help and His truth to uncover my diamond and to remove the dirt that has piled onto my heart from the world. This is the “transformation” offered to us through an intimate relationship with Jesus. Thus, I have two needs toward being my true self in order to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength: I need Jesus to provide through the presence of His Spirit within me the aspects of God’s nature that I lack (in the above example, the mercy and grace that I lack as a warrior woman); and, I need Jesus to remove the dirt from my diamond. We need to be aware that it is God’s deepest desire that we be fully and wholly who He created, and diligently seek Jesus to meet those needs. It is His truth that sets me free.
Third, if we are to fully love God, we need to hate sin. Again, this may seem a simple concept, but I hear Christians and non-Christians alike talking about what they must “give up” to be a believer, including the statement that it is “hard” to be a Christian. My contention is that if we feel like we are “giving up” something to be a Christian, that “something” is an idol that displaces our love of God. Therefore, our hearts and souls and minds are not fully invested in God. What are we really “giving up”? What of the world is better or greater or more worthy than our Lord? What does it really provide for us? I do not have an answer for these questions. Loving God means being “all in” for Him, and Him alone. Knowing God’s love and His provision, I am unwilling for anything else to supplant His love, peace and joy – anything, period. Nothing I have known compares to being with Jesus. There is nothing I want more, or even coming close, to His presence with me. I am told to “fix [my] eyes upon Jesus” – and this is truly the primary desire of my heart.
29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
32"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
34When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? We have reduced this most important commandment to something more akin to acceptance than love. It is as if we think it is enough to believe God exists. But these words of Jesus reveal a much deeper meaning, an all-encompassing oneness with God that includes some significant statements to us about us as well. So what can we uncover in a deeper examination of this commandment?
First, in order to truly love God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strength, we must be whole ourselves. While on the surface, this may sound like a simple element, the presence of sin in the world due to the fall of man results in internal fragmentation and disconnection. For most of our lives, we are striving to find ourselves – what is termed “self-actualization” in psychological terms – and to create a sense of being whole. We spend a lot of our lives presenting facades, putting on masks, and trying to be what we think people want to see or expect us to be. We can lose ourselves in the process of trying to be acceptable to others, or good enough ourselves to feel worthy of love. Additionally, difficult and painful experiences in our lives are like rocks hitting against our personhood, chipping off pieces of ourselves that get left behind. For some extreme cases, the trauma is so severe, they lose themselves completely, resulting in the soul going into hiding in a protective internal “cave” that becomes a prison. On top of that, we have the “18 inch division” between our head and heart that is considered the longest 18 inches known to man. What we “know” in our heads we often do not “know” in our hearts; in other words, what we think is true often feels false to us, and what we know in our heads is false often feels true to our hearts. And ultimately, we cannot be whole without our Creator, so we need God to complete us, to pick up the pieces of our soul, and to make us whole again.
Second, the only way we can love God with our whole selves is to be our true selves, as God created us to be. We can re-translate the first and greatest commandment as God saying to us, “Be who I made you to be.” Within each of us is some aspect of God’s nature, as we are all made in His image. None of us, except Jesus, holds the entire nature of God within us, which means we are imperfect in our nature. This limitation also means we experience the “downsides” of the element of His nature that He placed within us. As an example of this, in my case, my warrior nature (the face of Jesus standing on the steps of the Temple confronting the Pharisees with their hypocrisy) can be harsh toward others, lacking in the balance of His grace; however, in Jesus the warrior was completed and balanced by His mercy and compassion. Still, my warrior nature reflects one aspect of the face of God. That light, or “diamond” within me, is who He created me to be. When I am born into this sin-based world, my diamond begins to be covered over with dirt – lies from others, false interpretations of my experiences, and generational false beliefs of my family are all examples of the dirt that can cover the diamond within me. If I am living another life, another self, another “face” then I am unable to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. I need God’s help and His truth to uncover my diamond and to remove the dirt that has piled onto my heart from the world. This is the “transformation” offered to us through an intimate relationship with Jesus. Thus, I have two needs toward being my true self in order to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength: I need Jesus to provide through the presence of His Spirit within me the aspects of God’s nature that I lack (in the above example, the mercy and grace that I lack as a warrior woman); and, I need Jesus to remove the dirt from my diamond. We need to be aware that it is God’s deepest desire that we be fully and wholly who He created, and diligently seek Jesus to meet those needs. It is His truth that sets me free.
Third, if we are to fully love God, we need to hate sin. Again, this may seem a simple concept, but I hear Christians and non-Christians alike talking about what they must “give up” to be a believer, including the statement that it is “hard” to be a Christian. My contention is that if we feel like we are “giving up” something to be a Christian, that “something” is an idol that displaces our love of God. Therefore, our hearts and souls and minds are not fully invested in God. What are we really “giving up”? What of the world is better or greater or more worthy than our Lord? What does it really provide for us? I do not have an answer for these questions. Loving God means being “all in” for Him, and Him alone. Knowing God’s love and His provision, I am unwilling for anything else to supplant His love, peace and joy – anything, period. Nothing I have known compares to being with Jesus. There is nothing I want more, or even coming close, to His presence with me. I am told to “fix [my] eyes upon Jesus” – and this is truly the primary desire of my heart.
One of the “idols” we put before God is self. We want to be god for ourselves, sometimes knowingly, like when we choose to pursue a sin based on fleshly desire instead of pursuing Jesus; and sometimes unconsciously, which is the source of our sin nature from the original sin of man in Genesis 3. Honestly, many people would deny that they want to be their own god, but this is the foundational element of the sin nature. It is a belief we all share. As with the rest of the dirt on our diamond, we need Jesus and His Spirit within us to transform the sin nature. Our part in this transformational process is willingness to partner with Jesus and willingness for Him to change us.
Remember Jesus’ response to the teacher of the law: if we truly understand what it means to love God with all of our selves, we are not far from the kingdom of God.
