This was originally published May 28, 2007
Matthew 22:36-40 KJV Master, which is the great commandment in the law? (37) Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heartG2588, and with all thy soulG5590, and with all thy mindG1271. (38) This is the first and great commandment. (39) And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (40) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Jesus gives us the Great Commandment. This is the heart of the Law and carries over even in the age of grace. There are three categories of loving God. Obedience to these three categories of loving God leads to a balanced Christian life and a well balanced Church. We are to love God through sound doctrine, supernatural experience and through supreme allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Loving God with your Heart
The heart is the seat of affections.Those things valued by the heart are perceived to be the important things in life. It is the core or center of our being.Even today we use the word heart to refer to the center. Everything in our life radiates from this center. Whatever the heart gives first place has the supreme allegiance of the entire life. It is, therefore, from the heart that Love and allegiance begin. We love God from our heart by pledging supreme allegiance to Him. We are to place God first with all of the heart. We are to be obsessed with God-even addicted to God. We pledge allegiance to God the Father, His Son, The Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son
Loving God with your Soul
The Greek word for soul literally means breath. Breath in the sense of the breath common to all animals. Strong Concordance says it refers to animal sentience (perception). Animals share with man the capacity to percieve and experience but lacks the rational and verbal capabilities that man posesses. Loving God with your soul means loving God through experience-by both experiencing God in our lives and grounding our experience in God
Loving God with your Mind
The Greek word for Mind means the intellect. We are to use our intellectual capacities to glorify God. We are to use our intellects in discerning sound doctrine and Bible study.
Loving God and Balance in the Church.
Very few churches are consistent in Loving God or worshipping God. Some Churches focus exclusively or predominantly on Bible study or doctrine. Other churches-most churches today focus exclusively or predominantly on experience without due attention on sound doctrine or developing allegiance to Jesus Christ.
We are to pursue sound doctrine and Biblical literacy as an essential part of the Christian life. We are to foster in ourselves and other people supreme allegiance to King Jesus. Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We are to be open and long for the experience of the supernatural presence of God (including signs and wonders) as well and make that everything we do in our experience ‘for the glory of God ‘.
God’s Church must heavily emphasize all three as aspects of loving God. This is King Jesus’ program for loving God. This command is called the Great Commandment. This command, along with the Second Great Commandment-loving your neighbor as yourself-is the foundation of all of the Law and Prophets.
G2588
καρδία
kardia
kar-dee’-ah
Prolonged from a primary κάρ kar (Latin cor, “heart”); the heart, that is, (figuratively) the thoughts or feelings (mind); also (by analogy) the middle: – (+ broken-) heart (-ed).G5590
ψυχή
psuchē
psoo-khay’
From G5594; breath, that is, (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from G4151, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from G2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew [H5315], [H7307] and [H2416]: – heart (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us, + you.G1271
διάνοια
dianoia
dee-an’-oy-ah
From G1223 and G3563; deep thought, properly the faculty (mind or its disposition), by implication its exercise: – imagination, mind, understanding.G1223
διά
dia
dee-ah’
A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through (in very wide applications, local, causal or occasional). In composition it retains the same general import: – after, always, among, at, to avoid, because of (that), briefly, by, for (cause) . . . fore, from, in, by occasion of, of, by reason of, for sake, that, thereby, therefore, X though, through (-out), to, wherefore, with (-in). In composition it retains the same general import.G3563
νοῦς
nous
nooce
Probably from the base of G1097; the intellect, that is, mind (divine or human; in thought, feeling, or will); by implication meaning: – mind, understanding. Compare G5590.