All In On All Three

Jesus replied,“‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’
In Deuteronomy the Israelites were given a prayer that Jewish people today recite.  Videos on Youtube show this prayer being broadcast over loudspeakers over the Old City portion of Jerusalem.  The Shema Yisrael or שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל‎.  Shema is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9.  This prayer is one of the very basic premises of Judaism.  Jesus was not telling these experts in the Jewish law anything that they were not already aware of.  In their religious zeal they would speak this prayer every morning and every evening.  But, it seems that these religious experts were missing the point.
The Shema calls out three elements of man to love God completely:  heart, soul, and mind.  We are to love God with our heart which is where the spirit resides, a spiritual, supernatural place.  Great!  What does that mean?  The old covenant recognized that a spiritual relationship with God begins from within, with a proper disposition toward the preeminent Savior, sovereign, and satisfier. From the heart “flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23), and without one’s will, desires, passions, affections, perceptions, and thoughts rightly aligned, the life of love is impossible.
In the first five books of the Old Testament the “soul” refers to one’s whole being as a living person, which includes one’s “heart,” but is so much more. For example, in Genesis 2:7 we are told that “Yahweh God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living [soul] creature” (Genesis 9:5).  The Shema starts with a call to love God from within and then moves one step larger saying that everything about us as a person is to declare Yahweh as Lord.  So we are to love God with our passions, hungers, perceptions, and thoughts. But we are also to love him with how we talk, and what we do with our hands, and how we utilize our talents, and how we react to challenges — our entire being is to display that we love God.
There are several components to intellectual love for God.  Dedicating our minds to knowing him.  Thinking clearly and truly about him so that we don't have false ideas in our minds.  Not being satisfied with merely an intellectual awareness of his attributes, character, and acts but intentionally devoting that mental effort to serve the affections (emotions) for God.  If a person doesn't move from intellectual awareness of God and right thinking about God to an emotional embrace of God, he hasn't loved God with his mind. The mind has not yet loved until it hands off its thoughts to the emotions where they're embraced. And then the mind and the heart are working in what feels like such harmony, and you experience it as both intellectual and affectional love for God.  To love God with our mind which is through gaining of understanding or thought process; via the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 12:2)
The LORD does not want just our flesh, our emotions, or our thoughts.  He wants all of us.  Soup to nuts.  That is the love God desires of us.  Our everything.
  1. What area of your life do you hold on to?
  2. What can you do today to begin to release this to God in love?

--Zine Smith

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