With Your Whole Heart

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&#

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

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