To become strong and healthy, we need a lot of energy.
And to increase energy levels, one of the vital things we need is sleep. Sleep is important because it makes us function at our best during the day. If we sleep fewer hours than we are meant to, it is hard to go through each day regardless of how much endurance we have got.
Like the requirement of physical energy to go through each day of our lives, we need to love God with our whole being. This is what it means to love God with strength.
Therefore, Mark chapter 12, verse 30, could be translated like:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and “as completely as you can.” (Richard C. Blight, An Exegetical Summary of Mark 9-16)
But how we can love the Lord our God as completely as we can? We are not born from ‘Jesus’ world but are born from the natural world!
Yes, we are born from the natural world but we also can have another birth that comes from the Spirit, as long as we believe in Jesus. More specifically, in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
Let’s recap what we have discussed, so far.
God’s love
In “Loving God Part 1,” we have learned that since “He has known each of us so intimately that He knows everything about us,” God wants to be our soulmate.
Nonetheless, He desires us to respond to Him in the same way. Jesus spoke that we have to lose our lives up to the point that we want to glorify God all day long through faith in Jesus, instead of serving ourselves.
In part two of the “Loving God” series, we have discussed that God “literally tore His heart out to save us as the Scripture states that Jesus Christ is actually God.” So, Jesus’ death on the cross was the expression of God’s love towards us.
He has been wanting to bring us to His kingdom by adopting all of us as His children. It is just a matter of believing in Jesus and accepting God as our heavenly Father.
John chapter 17, verse 3, is one of Jesus’ prayers to God before His death but also shows us how to have eternal life through faith in Him.
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John chapter 17, verse 3)
Falling in love with God
Other Scriptures say that we can have eternal life through faith in Jesus, and this is true, indeed. But when we want to have faith in Him, we have to know Him as much as possible.
If we keep pursuing Jesus to make Him as our living foundation, we will eventually fall in love with Jesus. Loving Jesus then leads to loving God as He is the bridge and reconciler between God and humanity.
In “Loving God Part 3 – With Mind” article, we explored that we need to treasure God’s word daily first and foremost by reading it and applying it to our lives.
Jesus illustrates how vital hearing God’s word is in Luke chapter 6, verses 46-48. These verses declare whoever listens to God’s word and put it into practice has a solid living foundation like on a rock.
Although the Bible seems like an ordinary book for some, it actually is the living word of God if we allow it to be with the power of God’s Spirit.
The Spirit first interprets God’s word then transfers them into our minds, so we can actually hear what God is saying to us.
It doesn’t matter if the biblical context is different than our present context. Although the biblical contexts are historical, God’s word matters to us at different times as the followers of Christ are supposed to bring the historical contexts into today’s contexts.
Apostles of Christ and other believers in Him experienced God and journeyed with Christ in many possible ways that we can bring what they experienced into our present contexts.
Though my faith communities impacted my Christian life and are a big part of my life, I guess I was laying my living foundation with God’s word when I started writing devotionals. I fell in love with Him and want to pursue Him more and more.
Our response
Now, I cannot even imagine my life without Him. Loving Jesus eventually led me to go to Carey Baptist College, to become a Christian Writer and biblical commentator. And maybe, He also is leading me to become an online pastor, who writes and publishes sermons.
As I unpacked what we have learned so far—loving God with soul, heart and mind—to completely love God is to glorify Him in our actions, pursue Him as much as possible and let our lives be filled with God’s word through hearing and practising it.
Each of the four terms—soul, heart, mind and strength—are important but strength is the life force that motivates them all. As strength refers to energy, spiritual strength energizes us to love God all the time.
If we are spiritually weak, it doesn’t matter, as the Spirit allows us to be spiritually strong. And remember that God loves us equally regardless of what we have done in the past because of Jesus’ sacrifice.
So, let’s glorify God in Jesus throughout our lives! Amen.