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The Many and the One

Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Psalm 119:97 Man, is that whole-hearted love or what?  I pray that verse frequently, and I keep hoping that one of these times it will feel sincere!  Because the fact is that my love for God’s law is not as strong as all that.  While his words may briefly come to mind from time to time, that hardly qualifies as meditation. And it certainly is not “all the day”. That reminds me again of what Bishop Ryle said about the zealous man, that he sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed-up in one thing—and that one thing is to please God. The attraction I find in that quote is its simplicity.  Instead of having thousands of thoughts racing through my mind each day, instead of charging down rabbit trails in pursuit of distractions, instead of seeking escape from threats both real and imagined, instead of getting so caught up in the to do list that God and his word are far from my mind, I woul
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Loving God with all our mind

The White Horse Inn Facebook page shared a 2016  article on five ways to love God with our mind. Since it is pertinent to my blog topic, I decided to share it too.  One line that stood out to me was this: We must love learning for the sake of loving God better. Those of you who know me well are probably not surprised that I would pick that out, nerdy as I am.  But what I really need is to pay attention to the line immediately following: Of course, a trap is to love learning and never get around to loving God. Because we live in a culture that emphasizes feelings, we tend to hear the command to love God in terms of emotion, affection, and passion. That is all good and right, and we have talked here about being a zealous Christian. But this call to love God is not just about whipping up our feelings. It is also implicitly a call to know him. And we know him through the reading, teaching, and preaching of his Word. Do you come to church hungry to see God and learn about him? Do
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If you love me, you will keep my commandments

Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."  We saw before that God wants our love to be whole-hearted.  Now we will see that we must obey with the whole heart. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.  Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Psalm 119:34-37 In the post On Zeal , we read that the zealous man sees one thing , cares for one thing , lives for one thing .  Here we see similar words from the Psalmist.  What do your eyes look at? What do you delight in? What is your heart inclined to? My heart is inclined to many things, not one thing .  Most are innocent, but too many are for selfish gain.  There is much I delight in, again mostly innocent, but I delight in it more than walking in the path of God&#
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On Zeal

Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way. It is a desire which no man feels by nature — which the Spirit puts in the heart of every believer when he is converted — but which some believers feel so much more strongly than others, that they alone deserve to be called "zealous" Christians. This desire is so strong, when it really reigns in a man, that it impels him to make any sacrifice — to go through any trouble — to deny himself to any amount — to suffer, to work, to labor, to toil — to spend himself and be spent, and even to die — if only he can please God and honor Christ. A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed-up in one thing — and that one thing is to please
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Welcome!

I am so glad you stopped by and I hope you will come back often. Are you ready to have some challenging conversations about loving God? That is what I am aiming to do here. Let's look today at one of the best known verses in the Old Testament. Faithful Jews around the world pray this daily and Christians know it as the great commandment: " You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. "  Deuteronomy 6:5 (ESV) Just listen to those words.  They accuse us, don't they?  Who can say that they love God with  all  their heart, with  all  their soul, with  all  their might?  Seriously,  all ??  When he was asked which is the "great" commandment, Jesus pointed to this.  It is great, in so many ways. Huge, even. To scale this Mount Everest of commandments, we need the grace of God.  I hope that this blog can be a place of grace where we can help each other to love God better. I will offer passages from
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