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02/26/18 - Mark 12


Feb 26, 2018 – Mark 12

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' Mark 12:30

He's not looking for a portion of our love... He wants all of it.

This age-old instruction from God captures the essence of every command and instruction out of His mouth.  Even loving our neighbor comes out of loving God first.  So the teachers are probably not surprised that Jesus would quote this as the number one objective of life --- even if some had anticipated he might respond with one of the 10 Commandments. 

Many people would say they love God – but here’s where it gets sticky.  Jesus uses the word ALL in every aspect of love, showing that God is not impressed with partial love, but growing love.   All of us are guilty of showing love to God in partial ways.  Some worship him every week … except for those weeks they are busy with sports or personal enjoyments.  Some obey His commandments completely … as long as it doesn’t impact their standard of living.  Some are fully involved in serving the Lord’s Kingdom … but have forgotten they are not serving for the attention or accomplishment, but serving for God’s enjoyment.  We have this tendency to offer God partial love, and feel good about it as long as it compares better than others in our network.

The measure of “all” is not found in comparing to others around us.  There will always be some who express less love than us, and others who express more love.  The measure of “all” is between you and God.  Is what you’re offering to God “all” you have to give at this moment?  Are you serving or giving or worshipping out of complete love?  Love is not just about volume or quality, it’s also about motive.

If we just started every day looking to Love God with all we have, there’s a good chance it would change the rest of our day drastically.  Not only might it change our schedules and activities, it might help us recognize the moments built into every day when God is working and wants to involve us.  It might just open the door to conversations about God with friends and family at a distance from Him.  It might just restructure our behavior to react differently – giving grace instead of judgment, providing forgiveness instead of anger, seeking His Word instead of our opinions.  Loving God is not just a momentary checkmark on our day, it means being invaded by His love every moment of the day.

Let’s just be honest.  It takes more than one lifetime to learn to love God with “all”.  There’s so much to change and unlearn.  We’ll never completely arrive this side of heaven.  God knows that, but His standard doesn’t change.  He celebrates the growth of our love, not the gap of our love.  So how is that looking these days?  Is your gap of love shrinking?  Is the growth happening?

Use today as a starting point and re-examine your love level.  Is God First in your schedule?  Is worship a priority?  Are you growing in obedience to His commands?  Is anything hindering your time with Him every day?  Don’t try to feel better by ignoring or excusing it --- choose today to Grow Your Love of God.  After all --- He wants and deserves ALL of our love, so MORE of it would be a good place to start.

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