Today’s Readings
Context
I've often said my least favorite word in the Bible is "all." If Deuteronomy 6:4 said, "Love God with your heart and your soul and your might," I'd be golden. But that word "all" comes in and messes everything up. This isn't the only place, of course, but it is one of the biggest. All my heart? I love God but I'm not sure I've gotten to that place where all my heart is his.
Deuteronomy 6 is foundational to an understanding of the Old Testament. People think of the God of the OT as mean, harsh, even cruel, and distinguish him from the God of Love revealed in the NT. But as we see here, the basis of the relationship of Israel to God is the same as ours. Love. Love God. God presents himself as a spurned husband when Israel embraces other gods in the prophets. He is a God of love who shows love and desires to receive love.
Deuteronomy 6 is foundational to an understanding of the Old Testament. People think of the God of the OT as mean, harsh, even cruel, and distinguish him from the God of Love revealed in the NT. But as we see here, the basis of the relationship of Israel to God is the same as ours. Love. Love God. God presents himself as a spurned husband when Israel embraces other gods in the prophets. He is a God of love who shows love and desires to receive love.
Devotional - Loving God
Deuteronomy 6 is one of the foundational passages of the Old Testament. It begins with the "Shema Y'israel" (Hear, O Israel), in 6:4 and follows with what Jesus identified as the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Then in the next few chapters, Israel is told how to live out that devotion, commanded to eschew idolatry of any form, to trust God against all enemies who would try to keep them from the work of God and to expect that the God who saved them from Egypt would establish them in the Promised Land.
But the passage roots in the first command, to love God with all of our heart and soul and might. Nothing is to come between us and our devotion to God – the key in all of our struggles in life.
It is easy to become obsessed with the spiritual battles we face. We focus on how to avoid lust, or stop losing our tempers, or break a habit, or (in my case) fight obesity. And we should face sin in the power of Christ and oppose it. But there are two things we need to remember as we engage in these battles.
First, we do not have to fight sin to gain approval with God. We are accepted in Christ - fully, unreservedly and eternally. We seek to please him not to gain his approval but because he has already given us his approval in Christ. We love because he first loved us. This is a powerful fuel for our struggle.
Second, all of our struggles with sin root in this battle - seeking to love God with all of our hearts, souls and might. Do I love God more than my food? Do I love God more than my addiction, more than my greed, more than my pride? Do I love him more than my hurts and bitterness? All of life is a battle to live out the truth of the Greatest Commandment. And it is a battle we ought to engage daily - seeking, struggling to focus all of our hearts and minds on Christ, desiring hearts and minds that are pure in their love for him.
Thank God that we are accepted in Christ, because we always fall short of that noble goal. No matter how much I love God, I can always love him a little more, draw a little closer to him and seek him a little more fully. In the meantime, as this battle ensues, as we wage war against the flesh to love God with all our hearts, it is comforting to know that we are accepted in Christ even in our failure.
That is where we live our lives - hovering between the ideal (pursuing God with all our hearts) and the real (our divided hearts). In the "in-between" we must remember these two truths.
1) My highest calling is to love God with all my heart. Every other struggle or challenge in life is part of that battle - to love God.
2) In the midst of that struggle, and even in the midst of my failure, God's love for us is unshakable and eternal.
In that comfort, we go forth to battle, we seek to love God a little more today than yesterday. We look forward to that day when we will see him face to face to our hearts will be pure in love for him.
Father, I do love you. Help me to love you more. Purify my heart that it may only beat for you! And I thank you that even in my failures you never abandon me.
Think and Pray
None of us fully attains the ideal of loving God with all our heart, but are you growing in your love and devotion for God?
Is love the driving factor in your relationship with God - not fear, duty, or other emotions?
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