Love the Lord your God with all…

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Deuteronomy 6:5

Dear Friends in Christ,

Sometimes church language becomes so familiar that we become inoculated against it. One of the most important lines in the Bible for both Jews and Christians is this line above, calling us to love God with all of who we are. But do we live that way? The verses that follow emphasize the importance of keeping that priority always in the front of our mind and ordering all our lives around our love of God and devotion to him. How does this play out in your life?

So often, we find other allegiances or other ways of thinking start to crowd God out of our hearts, or skew our loyalties in ways that we don’t notice. Immersed in secular media, we start to adopt more brutal or self-oriented ways of relating to one another, mimicking the characters we watch or listen to. Stirred up by the camaraderie of our friends, we are quick to advocate for our favorites in culture and politics, and slow to test those ideas against God’s calls to us. What have you or I allowed to become a sacred cow competing with the primacy of Jesus in our lives?

It takes discipline and intention and the fellowship of trusted brothers and sisters in Christ to love God with all our heart and mind—all our thinking and caring and loyalty, to love God with all of who we are, all of who we hope to be, to form and shape ourselves and our sense of self in accordance with God’s dreams for us. When we order our lives to support that kind of love of God, we immerse ourselves in God’s love for us, God’s grace and mercy, God’s rich provision for us through all of life’s turmoil.

This summer, as you order your life for the days ahead, keep in the forefront of your mind the priority of putting God first, and be sure that your other priorities are part of God’s dream for you. Be fearless in culling those things that crowd God out, and with joy embrace those things that welcome the Holy Spirit more closely into your daily life. God bless you this summer and always!

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. ⁵ You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶ Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷ Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸ Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹ and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Yours in Christ,

-Tom