Hear O Israel! Part 1

"Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart..."--Deuteronomy 6:4-5.  Here we find the first of three parts of a very familiar verse.  All of verse five tells us we should love God with all our heart, soul and might.  But as we look at this verse, I would like to explore what it means to love God with all of our heart.

With all your heart.  When we think of this concept of our heart, I think we all know that we do not mean the organ inside our chest that pumps the blood through our system.

When the Bible speaks of the heart, it is referring primarily to the very center of our being.  It is referring to the center of our emotions and desires.

With all your heart.  So if our heart is the very center of our being, our love for God needs to be at the center of our lives.  This will lead us to follow His commands and do everything we can to pursue His will.

In Matthew 22:37 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 and tells us that this is the great and foremost commandment.  This and the command to love our neighbor as ourselves is what all the other commands are hinged on (Matthew 22:40).

With all your heart.  So if we claim to love God with all of our heart as well as love our neighbor, following God's other commands should not be a problem.

Think of it this way.  When we love someone or something, we will do whatever we can to please that person. Is this our attitude towards our God?  Do we love God with the center of our being?

With all your heart.  So my encouragement to you is this.  Consider Luke 12:34 which says where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.  Where is our heart? Take some time to take a personal inventory of where you are investing most of your time and jot this down on paper.  Whatever you spend the most time doing, that is a pretty good indicator of where your heart is.  We cannot allow our other obligations to take the place of God in our hearts. So, love God with all your heart.

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! PRAY ABOUT IT! LOVE Y'ALL! GOD BLESS!