In order to fulfill God’s mission for us as individuals and His church, we need to continually mature in our total being (mind, emotions, and will). As human beings, as men and women, made in God’s image He created us for His purpose and His glory. However, because of the Fall, sin has done its damage, marring His image in us and the world. Everyone of our capacities or faculties have been corrupted. But we also realize, because of God’s grace and His redemptive work in our lives through Christ, He has the power to cause deep changes within us and restore our minds, emotions and will to once again reflect His image.
But growth doesn’t happen overnight, and for deep changes to take place it requires a willingness, openness and honesty with God about what is going on inside of our hearts. Deep changes require receptivity to the Spirit of God’s wisdom and guidance. We place our hearts in His hand because He knows each of us, He loves us perfectly, and knows where we need to be changed.
But Jesus knows that,
Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be (Luke 12:34).
He knows that whatever or whoever has my heart has me.
Today’s passage of Scripture will be from Mark 12:29-31 where Jesus is answering one of the scribe’s questions about which was the most important commandment.
Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).
Jesus was citing a prayer, or shema, in the Hebrew from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 - a prayer that the Israelites prayed in their homes every morning and evening. Everyone listening to Jesus that day understood the most important commandment was to love God and to love others.
To love God is to be loved completely and totally by Him first because He, and He alone, is God and because He has made a covenant of love with His people. He is the one that set them out free from slavery in Egypt and now for the next 40 years He wants to set them free from the things that they were enslaved to on a deeper level by drawing them into a meaningful relationship with Himself. In this covenant, God gives Himself totally in love to His people; therefore, His desire for His people is that from the very core of their being (heart) they would respond and be directed by their love for him. God desires a real relationship, not just one in name. The command starts with loving God with all of our heart. So…
1. What is the heart?
The heart is the command center of our entire being and has the ability to trust in God or in its own ability to know what is best for us (Prov 3:5, 28:26). It is an expression for the deepest, inmost thoughts and feelings of a person. It is the source of all our words. Jesus said, “The mouth speaks from that which fills the heart.” The good man or woman from his or her [inner] good treasure, brings out good things; and the evil man or woman, from his or her [inner] evil treasure, brings out evil things (Matt 12:34-35).
The heart is capable of making good and bad decisions (Prov 16:1). If we continue in anger or malice toward someone in our hearts, God considers it the same as murder (Matt 5:22), to look at the opposite sex with lust in the heart, God considers the same as adultery (Matt 5:28). Our hearts have the potential to deceive us (Jer 17:9) and cause us, “to misorder our loves.” In other words, the concept of ordered loves, ordo amoris, associated with Augustine and Aquinas, describes the proper hierarchy of love which has profound implications for how we live our lives and the impact we have on others.
This is why Proverbs 4:23 tells us to, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”
Whatever your heart desires (loves) will be the real driving force in all areas of your life. What is driving my life? What is the cause beneath the cause? Why am I acting or reacting a certain way? (Personal example) Am I being motivated by a desire to be loved, to be accepted, to be married, to have a good reputation, health, success, popularity, for financial security, rest, people’s respect and trust me?
Tim Keller said:
You harm yourself when you love anything more than God.
How does this work? If you love your children more than you love God, you will essentially rest your need for significance and security in them. You will need too much for them to succeed, be happy, and love you. That will either drive them away or crush them under the weight of your expectations, because they will be the ultimate source of your happiness, and no human being can measure up to that.…If you love your spouse or romantic partner more than God, the same things occur…you will rest your need for significance and security in them, you’ll crush them under the weight of your expectations…and ultimately, you will end up deeply disappointed, and discontent.
Are these natural desires necessarily bad? No, we were wired to desire that which we perceive will lead to life, happiness, and pleasure, and we avoid that which we perceive as bad, aversive, painful, or unpleasant. The pursuit of pleasure or happiness and aversion to pain and suffering is a basic principle of life, and in itself, begotten by God. The challenge is not letting the desires become god or the end game So…
2.How should we love God?
We love Him with all our heart. - But how can I love God? God promised us that when we placed our trust in Him he would give us a new heart and a new Spirit (Ezek 36:26). The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and produces the moral and spiritual qualities of holiness and goodness. Because the Spirit lives within us, He can get to the very center of our thinking/emotions and motivations, reveal the true source of our desires whether they are self-centered or God focused, and then lead us into all truth.
The Holy Spirit is able to direct our hearts into the love of God. He, through the Word, is able to put our loves in the right order. The question is: Are we willing to let Him take us there? Am I willing to open my heart to God, am I vulnerable, do I welcome His continuous, piercing scrutiny, allow Him to test my heart and see if there’s any offensive way in me? (Ps 129:23-24). Am I willing to let the Holy Spirit reveal the true motivations of my heart and bring about deep changes so I can really love God and others from the core? So that I can live a spiritually healthy life. After the resurrection Jesus asked Simon 3x’s “Simon do you love me more than these (fish)?” Of course Simon loved fishing but He loved the Lord far more and was willing to give it up to fulfill Jesus desire for him.
If I really want change, what my heart holds dear, must change.
We love God with all heart and all our soul. This means that through every phase and transition of life I want to align my deepest passions and motivations with His desires. The psalmist prayed that God would deliver him from any self-delusion and reveal the true state of his soul. If God’s love is the motivating force in our lives, if we delight ourselves in Him, seek His will and His kingdom first, if we have the proper hierarchy of loves, then He will give us the desires of our hearts (Ps 37:4), if we love God, then we wouldn’t want anything outside of His will.
We love God with all our mind. This means loving God with our intellect. We love God in spirit and in truth - an intellectual love that is grounded in the Word of God. God created us to use our minds in the pursuit of the knowledge of Him and His creation and to make conscious decisions that align with His thoughts. He is our Creator and all knowledge is His knowledge. We allow our minds to inform our emotions, affections and will, leading to a deeper, more fulfilling love for God. We know who we love and why we love Him. He is the one teaching us how to love.
We love God with all our strength. Strength can be thought of as “worldly effect.” Strength is the consequences of a person’s life, their relationships, influences, productivity, property, and investments. Strength is an Aramaic term for “possessions.” It speaks of loving God with your time, resources, talents, and gifts in order to further His purposes.
In short, loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is a comprehensive, committed and all-consuming love and singular adoration. How does it play out when you:
3. Love your neighbor as yourself
Loving your neighbor is a natural and logical outgrowth of love for God and the most challenging. We may be able to fool others but if our relationships at home, with those we meet at work, next door, in church, or recreation aren’t an outworking of God’s love, we can’t pretend that everything is right with God. Something is not right in the heart.
And more than that: our employer is our neighbor too; so are all who serve us in shops, on public transport, the people who empty our garbage cans and those who try to keep streets and parks clean. Our neighbors are of every race and creed, every religious and denominational background, every nationality. If we love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we would want for them the treatment we would want for ourselves. Whether they deserve it or not.
If this is to be the case, if we are to have the capacity and maturity to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourself, deep changes need to happen.
For the past couple of weeks, we have been speaking about the need for emotional health and maturity. Our emotions are part of our response to our experience and also motivate us toward particular ends. Emotions (which are created by God) move us in a certain direction or to a certain action. Godly emotions, Spirit filled emotions move us in appropriate ways to fulfill God’s purpose in our relationships – at times we are moved to forgive, to reconcile, to repent, to wait, to pray, to hope, to confront, to love- that is how we love our neighbors as ourselves.
Without the Spirit of God it’s easy to love people who love you and who are more or less generally “lovely.” But how easy is it to show compassion, mercy, affection, sympathy, and empathy to people who are inconsiderate, unkind, irritable, arrogant, critical, or downright rude? Do you know any neighbors or work colleagues like this? Maybe even people who call themselves Christians? Like a heart stress test - My reactions or responses often reveal the health of my heart - if there is anything blocking the blood and oxygen from making it to the heart - where I need to mature spiritually in my mind, emotions and will.
We can be physically mature adults, educated, have a high IQ and yet have a very low EQ or emotional quotient or intelligence. The reason it’s important to be mature emotionally is because, “It is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally and mentally immature.”
To what degree am I receiving the Love of God. Where are we in our love for God and for each other? Where do we need to grow? What are the indicators of spiritually unhealthy emotions, mind and will? How can deep changes happen?
Let’s ask God to open our hearts, to make us vulnerable, welcome His continuous, piercing scrutiny, allow Him to test our hearts and see if there’s any offensive way in us. God has set you free from the fear of the penalty of sin which is death and eternal separation from Him, and now He want to set you free from those deep things those unseen and unspoken things that enslaved you that rob you of the true life that is yours. I pray we would be willing to let the Holy Spirit reveal the true motivations of our hearts and bring about deep changes so we can be free to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love others as ourselves.
