Love God with ALL Your Heart

I am looking for a Bible study to go through and read about a study on Tim Challies' blog by Paul Washer--one of my favorite preachers. It is entitled One True God and it gives a broad overview of the doctrine of God. During my study I read Deut. 6:4-5, which I have read many times in the past, but saw some things that I had not thought about before.

We are to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and with all our might. Most Christians can quote this verse, but we glaze over it without much reflection. Jesus quotes this verse in three of the gospels. He tells us that this is the greatest commandment in Mark 12:29,30. If Jesus tells us this we need to take notice and reflect on what that means for the way we live our lives. If we love God with ALL our heart, how much does that leave for others? If we love with ALL our might, what does our life look like?

My answer to the first is that it leaves nothing. If we follow what scripture says then we have nothing left to love others with because we have given all to God. How then does that line up with our command to love our neighbors in Mark 12:31? I would argue that we can love others because Christ loves and lives in us and therefore it is HIS love overflowing out of us. In other words, if we give him 100% of our love, He gives us an abundance to give to others. We love others because He first loved us.

My answer to the second question is that our lives would be radically different if we really followed this command with all our will. We would follow His commands and walk as Jesus walked. We would love and care for the poor, orphans, widows, and all our neighbors who are in need. James points to this as evidence of our salvation.

I believe that this commandment is the summation of all the other commands combined. This is an impossible task without the gracious work of Christ in our lives. I think 1 John 4:19 explains how this works. We love because He first loved us. I pray that we all experience this love fully because without it we can not hope to love anything in this world.