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DEUTERONOMY 6:5 “AND THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THINE HEART, AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIGHT.” (KJV)
“You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (NKJV)
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (NASB, RSV)
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (NIV)
“You must love him with all your heart, soul, and might.” (TLB)
Please read the verses that follow: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut 6:6-9)
If there was ever a call to those of us who follow the Lord to memorize and hide the very Words of God in our lives and hearts, here it is in Deuteronomy! Reading through the Bible, we recognize that the Ten Commandments were already given to Moses for the Israelites in Exodus 20. Read them to understand that the first commandments were instructions about their relationship with Him: No other gods, no idols, don’t take God’s Name in vain.
Here in Deuteronomy, Moses is instructing the new generation of Israelites just before they cross the river Jordan into the Promised Land. Notice, he is not adding commandments, but stressing what God has shown and taught them through forty years in the wilderness. He, God, must be first in their lives.
Flash forward to Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.”
Notice it is not just listed first/the first to come into the mind of God. It is first because it is the greatest commandment. It is first because before it, we cannot do anything else. We cannot love our neighbors as our selves before we love God this way. We cannot keep all the other commandments before we obey the first one. We cannot find our way to heaven without first coming to the Father who loves us so much that He came and died for us. We cannot love Him partially or some of the time. It is a complete and totally understandable command…Love Me Completely!
He commands us, and expects us to love Him with our heart, our soul, our mind and with all our strength. When we give our lives to Him, we can accept it as reasonable that we will spend the rest of our lives learning how to do this. And oh, how short of fulfilling that commandment we come!
In Mark, a scribe said to Jesus, “You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Interesting that Jesus responded to him by telling him he was “not far from the kingdom of God.” Do we want to get close to the kingdom? I wonder if, like we should, the scribe examined his own life and determined if he fell short of that standard?
With all our heart, soul, mind and strength. How quickly any one of those four can be diverted away from God toward our own desires. How quickly we can forget that He must always come first. How quickly Satan can lure our thoughts, our efforts, our heart toward the things of the world, and we don’t even recognize it without some serious self-examination.
Memorize this verse! Write it on your heart! Examine how far we are away from its fulfillment in our lives. Fall in love with the Lord again and renew a closeness that is willing to give Him your all. Give Him your heart, your soul, your mind AND all of your strength. You will find it amazing how the rest of the commands and a right way of living follow that approach to your Christian life!
Questions to ponder: When Jesus reminded them of this command, so many answered with confidence that they were fulfilling that first command. Do you think they were fooling themselves? How were their words testimony of loving God with everything but their actions and the testimony of their lives proof that they weren’t even close? What can make us think we are loving God as this command directs us yet with careful self-examination, we admit how short we fall of its fulfillment? This side of heaven, will we ever completely fulfill this command? Is this, among many other things in our faith, something we see growing every day in our lives?
Other Texts/Scriptures to examine and study: Exodus 20: 1-17, The Ten Commandments; Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27 the words of Jesus about this command; Other references to this commandment: Deut 11:1-22, 13:3, 19:9, 30:6-20, Joshua 22:5 and 23:11, Psalm 31:23, 97:10 and 116:1.
 
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