Love the Lord With All Your Heart
Love the Lord your God...
With All Your Heart
Luke 10:27
" ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.''"
The story of a woman and her dog
A woman I know bought her a dog 6 years ago. She was in her late 30's at the time and had been lonely for several years. All of her family had moved away from their hometown, leaving her all alone. Her mother had died when she was a young woman in her early 20's - a very traumatic loss. She had never married, never really dated but longed to be loved.
When she bought her dog, he was far from the pick of the litter. He had one eye that never developed, but he was cute to her and playful, full of love. Not long into the relationship, she discovered her dog had diabetes and began giving him insuilin shots twice a day and was very careful about his diet. Getting his medications regulated was a challenge and one day the dog had a seizure and severely damaged his hip, he now required hip surgery. A few years later he required caterax surgery on his one remaining eye so she traveled to another city so a specialized doctor could satisfy her dog's needs. , There were ongoing multiple ancillary medical problems. But through it the little dog would always be glad to see her when she returned home, jumping into her lap, licking her and bringing her joy, she loved her dog and her dog loved her.
Over the 6 years the woman had significantly
adjusted her own life around the dogs needs, being sure to give him
the necessary medication at various times in the day. She had
spent many thousands of dollars on her loved pet - and at times even
going into debt to make sure he got what he needed. She had pictures
of him all over her house and where she worked, on her cell phone, her
laptop. She loved her dog and her dog loved her.
At last the time came when she could
no longer continue to meet his escalating needs and she had to ‘put
him down'. It was one of the darkest days she could remember,
the dog she had loved, cared for, sacrificed for, was gone.
No one had loved her or was as happy to see her as her dog had been.
One of the hardest things we learn to do is to Love God
It sounds simple, so obvious and yet the practicalities of loving God seem so distant. After all, a dog can jump into your lap, but the God of the universe, I am not sure I want in my lap.
The Bible teaches us that we are to love God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind, and then to love our neighbour as ourselves. It reads well, rolls of the tongue nicely, but how does this really show up in my life? We are going to take the next several weeks to consider this; today we are going to tackle
How to Love God with our whole Heart.
To Love God with all your heart is to
- Know
why you need Him
The woman with the dog knew why she wanted her little dog, the companionship, the anticipation she felt as she drove home, the emotional rush as he jumped in her lap, the compassion she felt for him as she gave him his insulin shot, she needed that dog in her life - he brought her a sense of purpose, of love and being loved.
Do you need God in your life?
Do you need him to love you, accept you, heal you
Do you need him to provide for you or protect you
Do you need him to bring joy or hope into your life
Do you need him to free you from the things that hold your life in bondage
Fear, insecurity,
Do you need him? - where do you need him? How do you need him?
Sometimes we forget why we need God in our lives - we get used to managing things as best as we can on our own, when things get out of control, bigger than we are, we look to other things first instead of God to meet our needs; we find new people to love us, a new doctor to heal us, a new job to provide for us, a better security system to make us feel safe, something else to mask the pain instead of running to God with our need and letting him meet our needs - and then recognizing that it was actually Him in response to his love for us
Do you know how and why you need God in your life?
The next thing in growing to love God is to
- Give him your
heart
The woman gave her heart to her little
dog. Everytime the dog jumped in her lap and licked her he also
jumped farther into her heart. Everytime she made a late
night run to the animal hospital, she gave him her heart. With
every sacrifice of time, attention, money she gave him her heart.
How do we give our hearts to an invisible God that we can neither hold or feel?
- know you can give God your heart
it is an act of your will, a conscious choice you make to Give God your heart. When you choose to love someone or something - like a dog - you make many little choices to give that person your heart, and as time goes by you continue to give them your heart - that is it is not merely a one time decision, but over and over,
I given my wife my heart a thousand times
Psa. 9:1 I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonders.
Your heart is yours to give and we can give it to any number of people, places or things,
We can give our hearts to animals, homes, jobs
We can give our hearts to causes - like the environment or politics
We can give our hearts to people
Our hearts are where our passions or interests lie - they can be inanimate things, all sorts of things - even God - who is far from inanimate.
Luke 12:34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
When you give your heart to God and begin to love him with all your heart then you will:
- Look to him
to satisfy your heart
The woman looked to her dog to satisfy the deep desires of her heart
With him in her life she felt needed, loved, important
When we love the lord with all our heart
we are looking to him to satisfy our hearts desires
Is. 58:11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
We often forget the benefits of a loving
relationship with God, perhaps we hear too much about the wrath of God,
or we hang on to that in our thoughts more than the benefits
- Remember the benefits
Psa. 103:1 Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
He accepts us and forgives our sins
He heals our diseases - perhaps that is where our encounter of his benefits stops -
Bad things happen - I get sick, someone close to me gets sick, God didn't heal them and make them better, how can a loving God allow such things to
We so quickly forget the nature of our relationship with God and then we forget all his benefits. We live in a state that all will taste physical death, but not all taste spiritual death
Jesus said:
Matt 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
He redeems our lives from the pit - He says you are valuable
When you are in a pit all you can see are the walls that keep you trapped, you may see the sky above you but it means very little
We can be in many different kinds of pits - health, jobs, relationships, finances...
He can lift you out of those pits -
show you the way up and out to bring you to freedom
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
You must remember the benefits and let him satisfy your heart and then you will find you begin to love him
He puts a crown of love and compassion
on you - that is he gives you the abilty to love
- Sacrifice other things to place Him first in your heart
The woman made great sacrifices for her dog and her heart followed her sacrifice
This is kind of a chicken and egg deal - do you love because you sacrifice or do you sacrifice because you love?
Did she love her dog first and then sacrifice or love grew because she sacrificed
Jesus shows us how to love - God and others
1John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
1John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
Because Jesus first loved us we can love God
To do that we must be willing to sacrifice
other things to put God first and to love Him above all else.
This morning - do you need to come to the point that you know you need God in your life
Or perhaps you need to remember why you need God - can you recount why you need him?
Do you need him to love you, accept you, heal you
Do you need him to provide for you or protect you
Do you need him to bring joy or hope into your life
Do you need him to free you from the things that hold your life in bondage
Fear, insecurity,
Do you need him? - where do you need him? How do you need him?
This morning - do you need to give him your heart - for the first time or again -
Every morning I give God my heart again - if I don't I take it back that day and am in danger of giving it to someone or something else
Do you need to give God your heart -
you cant love him with your heart if you have not given him your heart.
Are you looking to him to satisfy your hearts needs
Maybe you have been managing things on
your own long enough and you are willing to look to him to satisfy your
hearts needs - then you are in a position to love him with your heart
- until then your relationship with him is nothing more than a religious
duty, but he wants more than that - and so do you.
Do you need to remember the benefits
of this relationship with him, what he has done for you - count you
blessings - name them one by one - and your love for him will grow
Do you need to begin to sacrifice for him, - you do live sacrificially - people sacrifice all kinds of things - family, marriages, jobs, money, time, opportunity, for the things the love the most , what are you sacrificing for you love relationship with God?