See first question and response here.
What do you think it means to love God with all your heart? With all your soul? With all your mind?
This is a hard one. Steve emailed me this a couple of days ago and I'm still processing my answer. I've looked this at every angle and I just can't find a way to put my thoughts together. Probably because I don't have any idea. I don't know. I wish I did. But I've been journeying on this road for a couple of years and I still don't have a specific answer.
Lets journey together to find the answer.
Here is another question for you, as we journey together through this. How do we get to a point where we want "more God" and move away from the place of, we have "enough God"? People say they want "more God", but their lives don't reflect Jesus. I believe Christians need to stop lying to themselves and realize they are at a place where they have "enough God." When we get to a place where we want "more God;" the heart, soul and mind stop being our focus because they become who we are.
I don't have a three step process (key word process, since I have no idea), but I do know some things that have to be there:
1. We must realize how big God is.
This is one that I struggle with. In the book Crazy Love, Chan describes the vast world we live in. He describes the 350,000,000,000 galaxies that exist. No I didn't add too many zeros. This world God created is just absolutely HUGE. Look at how complex the human body is and how everything just works perfectly together. That is amazing. Think of the 6.68 billion people that live on this earth and how God has a plan for each one of their lives. His creation is nuts. This is one I just can't get my head around. We have to remember that God is too big for our minds to wrap around, but I don't think I'm even close to understanding it. I believe the more and more we step back and realize God's size, even in small doses, the more we love our all-powerful God.
2. We must get uncomfortable.
This one is hard. Specially for us Americans. At some point Christianity and the American Dream became one. The first will becomes last and the last will become first. "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me" Luke 18: 22. Josh, you can't say that God is asking me to sell everything I have. Why not? If God asked you to sell everything; would you? Don't lie to yourself.
Most of us wouldn't. It gets me to a VERY uncomfortable place and I'm not okay with that. Instead I would quote scripture to prove it wrong (I can prove that I should be able to have 90 wives if I picked and choose verses) or give myself excuses like: God really isn't speaking, it's just gas from dinner. Sometimes we need to take scripture at literal truth and not over analyze it. I'm not saying, to love the Lord you God with all our heart, soul and mind we need to sell everything, but I am saying if God said sell everything we need to be at a place where we would with no questions asked.
3. We must get over ourselves.
Warren said it, "It's not about you." We all have a calling on our lives. A calling that is bigger then ourselves. A calling that takes a miracle from Him to fulfill. It's not about what we want, what we care about, or what we desire. It's about God. "Another disciple said to Him, 'Lord, first let me go and bury my father.' But Jesus told him, 'Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead'" Matthew 8:21-22. We have to be ready to follow Jesus even when we don't want to or it doesn't make sense to us. It's not about us. We would be an unstoppable force if we could live this principle out.
4. We must believe He could really do it.
Trust. Even when this doesn't seem to make sense. Mark Batterson puts it a great way: our galaxy (the milky way) is 100,000 light years away. A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles. Multiply 5,865,696,000,000 by 100,000 and on your best day with your best thought you are at least that far from God's thoughts. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" Isaiah 55:9. God knows best and we need to trust Him. Much easier said then done. Even when it seems stupid, crazy and absolutely ridiculous. We need to trust that God can and will do it. Jesus said, "...and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" Acts 1:8. In a time when people didn't travel more then 60 miles from their homes. Jesus says you will be my witness to the ends of the earth. We need to trust He will do what He says He will do.
First Step for Me.
I had to get uncomfortable. I left somewhere I loved, to do what God called me to do. It made no sense, it seemed like a stupid decision and in my deepest being, I did not want to do it. It took trust and it takes trust everyday. I miss ministry and I miss the ministry I had at Arrowhead, but God called me to move on and at the time I had no idea Ridgepoint was in my future. I held onto God in that time. We grew. I should say, I grew. I would not be the same person I am today or in this place in my relationship with my Creator if I stayed at Arrowhead. I had to get uncomfortable to hear God's call; deepen my trust and my intimacy with Him. Even though it was hard, I wouldn't change it for the world.
Process with me. Your thoughts?
1 comments:
Yeah, it's a hard one. Your answer made sense. And you were honest, you didn't know/have a specific answer. I liked your post. Especially #3; we must get over ourselves.
Here are my thoughts on what it means (short answer because I don't have enough for a long answer): Deuteronomy 6:4-5: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD 5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Love is not a feeling, but an action. It's something we do, not feel. Love will make you do things you don't feel like doing. The Jewish sages used the heart as a metaphor for the seat of craving and aspiration. The soul is the intellect. And the might or strength refers to resources such as talents, money, time, etc. So to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength means that our deeds and actions should be that we crave God, devote our entire intellect to God, and use all our resources for God; even on the times we don't feel like doing it. The biggest thing, for true love, is that we can't let our feelings dictate our actions. We have to dictate our feelings with our actions. Only recently have I fully understood what it means to love something/someone; and put that love into action. I've found that if I love something/someone, then my feelings will eventually turn towards my actions. On my limited Bible knowledge, I have yet to find a place where the words tell us to seek our feelings first. Time and time again it talks about our deeds. Look at the seven letters to the churches in Revelation. All of them are commended or chastised based on their deeds. Look at what happened to everyone in the Bible when they acted based on their feelings and not what they knew God wanted them to do (the Israelites wandering, Jonah, Moses, etc.). Look what happened when people acted on what God told them to do regardless of the feelings (Noah and the ark, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, etc.). And the biggest example is what if Jesus would have acted on His feelings? The night before His cruixifiction, He was so distraught that He was sweating blood and crying out to His father to take this burden away. Anyway, I started to digress into what love is, but I think that's where it starts. Too often we misinterpret feeling good as love.
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