”Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:5New International Version (NIV)
Deuteronomy 6:5 Devotional (Daily Bible Verse)
Love the Lord your God
I n Deuteronomy 6:5, Moses commands us to “Love the Lord your God“. These are the words of the covenant that God made with Israel. They were therefore repeated by Moses at the end of their 40-year journey in the wilderness.
This command, which is still relevant to us, takes and involves your entire self. At least this is what Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27 tell us.
Consequently, on one hand, loving God has to do with your will, intellect, and emotions (heart). On the other, it is also about your physical being.
Despite this, many find it challenging to love God. Primarily because He is a spiritual being. Not a physical being like the other men that we are used to loving.
Therefore, the love for God becomes unrelatable. Because a physical being is loving a spiritual being.
Thankfully, the apostle Paul encountered and understood this problem of relating to an invisible God. Therefore, in Romans 1:20 he gives us an easy way to relate to God’s spiritual presence in this physical world. He states that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”.
In other words, you can relate to God because you can see the creation. These include all the physical things He has made.
All in all, loving God with your all is very important because it helps you to:
- make the right choices (resolutions) (Daniel 1:8), and
- maintain your Christian identity (Daniel 3:16-18).
Prayer/Blessing
May you find the grace to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength. Amen.
Daily Bible Reading
Song of Songs 1-8 (see How to Read the Bible in One Year or How to Read the Bible (for Beginners))
