“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” – Luke 10:27
We quote this a lot — and rightfully so since it is indeed “the greatest commandment.” It is of utmost importance that we love God with our entire beings, giving no part of ourselves to the love of the flesh and its desires (1 John 2:15-17). However, something about this verse has always been a little difficult for me to understand. It’s so seemingly simple, and yet it is so massive in its weight and implications, that I want to make sure I know all I can about what it means. A few days ago, something about this verse was made clearer to me.
We –or at least I– often think of ways I can love the Lord with my soul (be faithful in prayer), my strength (serve Him continually), and my mind (be drenched in the Word of God and His doctrines of grace). But I fail at seeing how these acts parallel in loving Him with all my heart. What does loving Him with all my heart look like in comparison with the other three? How do I live that out?
Well, thanks to the English language (sarcasm noted), we’re unable see something very important. It turns out that the word translated “with” before “all your heart” is a different preposition than the “with” before your soul, your strength, and your mind. This is easily seen in the Greek, where the verse is translated: “You shall love the Lord your God [ex] all your heart and [en] all your soul and [en] all your strength and[en] all your mind.” Ex carries the connotation that our hearts are the source of love for God, while en tells us that our soul, strength, and mind are to be instruments of that love… the love which springs from the heart. “Umm.. ok”, you might say. Well what does that mean? How does that answer the question of how to love your Lord your God with all your heart?
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 36:26
We love God with all our heart by having a new heart given to us. I can’t love the Lord with all my heart–I can’t set all of my affections upon Him, finding within Him all that I adore — unless I see Him as beautiful and glorious, which is only possible by being given a new heart to do so. It is entirely God’s doing that I love Him with all my heart. Of course, it’s not just my heart that is new.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17
Because of this new heart, my entire being is new, and so I also necessarily love Him now with my soul, my strength, and my mind. My entire being is now a set of vessels from which the love of God, poured into my heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) , now flows. I now desire to pray, to serve, and to feed upon His Word.
Praise God for this glorious truth. I need to be reminded daily, hourly, moment by moment, that I am dependent upon Him for all.
