Part 4: The 4-Degrees of Loving God – Loving God With All Your Strength

“And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” –– Mark 12:30

This week we vow to Love the Lord our God with all our strength. Well, if this means physical strength, then your girl is in trouble because I might be a little weak when it comes to physical strength. Does anyone know of someone who’s hosting a virtual workout session? ‘DM a sista’ –– (i.e. Direct Message, for my baby boomers).

Nevertheless, when I meditate on the words, with all your strength, David’s Psalm comes to mind, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.” David had committed to loving God with all his inward man –– his inner part –– the part of man that communed with God in the Garden before the fall. So one can conclude that to love God with all one’s strength denotes the full extent of the power within one’s innermost being.

My friends, I am here to tell you that we have to love God with all we have and with all that we can muster up.

But Crystal, you may be saying, some days I just don’t have the extra strength. Some days all that I can do is manage my daily activities, let alone giving something to God.

Listen, my friend, I understand. There can be days when the busyness of the world consumes our strength and ability to give more. However, you do not have to manage on your own. There is someone within your reach, ready and able to help you with anything that you need assistance with, that person is the Holy Spirit ­­–– the Spirit of God living on the inside of you. He is the power. He is the strength. He is the dunamis that gives us the ability to do all things through Christ.

When we rely on the person of the Holy Spirit, nothing is impossible. There is nothing that you cannot accomplish, and there is nothing that you cannot achieve, including loving God. The Holy Spirit is like a cup of coffee or tea in the early morning. He gives us that extra boost we need to get going. So you see, it’s not within our strength, nor is it really within our control.

When we allow the Holy Spirit to have His way and have free course in our lives, He effortlessly loves the Father. He does the only thing that He knows to do –– love beyond measure. The Holy Spirit will take us to a place in God, where we can experience unconditional love, and it is in that place where we freely give what we have freely received.

Loving God is our first commandment in time and in place. He wants to be the first thing we think of at the beginning of each day, and He wants to come in first place in the contest of life. God is a jealous God. He will not allow anything or anyone to occupy the space He has claimed as His own.

The Lord is faithful and gracious. It is through this nature that His compassion never fails; and for this reason, we are greeted with new mercies every morning.

In return, let us give God our all every day – heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is the least we can give to a God who has given us His all.

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.”

– Lyrics Thomas O. Chisholm

Join me next week for Coffee on The Couch.