Loving God Wholeheartedly

As Tim Olson spoke this morning at our men’s meeting, I was reminded again of the priority that Jesus gave to what church people call the Great Commandment. In fact, it isn’t just church people who would call it that, it was Jesus who called it the greatest commandment.

Look it up if you’d like: Deuteronomy 6, verse 5 is the Old Testament quote, from the law given to Israel through Moses: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

Jesus quotes it this way, almost identically in Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:30 respectively:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment."

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

I can’t help but notice Mark recites the Old Testament concept for concept better than Matthew. Matthew adds “mind” and deletes “strength.” Nevertheless, the parallel witness of Mark gives us hope that the Jesus, the son of God knew his Old Testament.

After doing a brief word study of the terms used in both the Old testament and the New testament, as well as a look at the context surrounding Deuteronomy 6, I came to these conclusions regarding the Great Commandment:

1) The command to love God is based in God’s desire to see His people flourish and endure for generations. The context of Deuteronomy 6 gives the reasons for this and all the rest of the commands God would give:

These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, (vs. 1)

so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and (vs. 2)

so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey (vs. 2)

so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. (vs. 3)

Moses, the messenger of this command lays out this directive in light of God’s initiative of a love relationship with his people. He laid out this distinct relationship when he revealed himself to Moses in the ten commandments:

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:5-6)

The Great Commandment is not a random, obligation God demands of his people, but rather an order rooted in God’s love for His people. It is rooted in his desire to see his people flourish and endure for generations.

2) To obey the command to love God does not necessarily depend on an initial feeling of warmth towards God. This observation may be contestable if we only look at the Hebrew text where there are no distinctions made regarding types of love. However, in Greek, the word (agapao) calls us to love God out of deep appreciation and high regard, not out of the warmth of interpersonal associations that the word phileo might have conveyed. In this sense, one’s emotional state could be anywhere and still love (agapao) God. Of course, as the rest of the verse carries on, our emotions must play their part to the full in our loving God.

Taken in this sense, this command to love God might let us “love” him, even when we don’t “like” him. I say this as one who enjoys being in that place where I sense I have “heard from God” and “feel close to God.” It is isn’t authentic emotions if I say that all the time. Regardless, the truth of who God is stands strong and my obedience to the command to love God needn’t begin from some kind of warmth I feel towards God.

3) Our loving response to God incorporates the whole person. The terms heart, soul, mind have significant semantic overlap. Taken as a whole, any one of these terms could mean thinking, feeling or willing. Even as the lexicon scholars Louw & Nida suggest, these terms would need to be translated differently in different cultures to effectively communicate meaning. Regardless of whatever psychology theory about the relationship between mind, emotion, will, inner man, outer man, affections, appetites that you hold to, the semantics and term definitions are not the end goal. The command to love God demands all of us, asking all that is going on inside and all that happens through our physical body to work together as a team effort.

4) There is a choice we make in loving God whole-heartedly that requires us to point ourselves towards God. It takes place inside of us. It results in outward expressions of love, towards God and neighbors.

5) There are physical activities that help us love God. The Deuteronomy passage suggests:

- Be active in passing on your faith to the next generation. Impress them on your children. (7)

- Talk about your faith. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (7)

- Use physical reminders on the body and at home: Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. (8) Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (9)

- Find Remembering exercises. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (12)

- Ask yourself the question: “Do I seek God’s approval or someone else’s?” Do what is right and good in the LORD’S sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers, (18)