Mark 12:30: Loving the Lord with ALL

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Mark 12:30

If you were to sum up all of the commands in scripture, how would you do it? Although you may have a good answer, Jesus has a better one. In summarizing the entire law of scripture, Jesus says that we ought to love God with all we are.

In Mark 12, the religious leaders are trying to trip Jesus up so that they would have a just reason to accuse him. However, Jesus isn't giving them one. However, they try one last trick. Asking Jesus what the greatest commandment is, they hope that Jesus will answer something heretical and against the teachings of the Old Testament, and thus give them a reason to hold him guilty. However, Jesus doesn't fall into their trap. Rather, Jesus summarizes the entire law by quoting Moses' words in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Jesus is pretty smart!

But let us look at what Jesus (and Moses) meant here in Mark 12:30. Let us remember the context: Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was out of the 10 Commandments. However, Jesus didn't answer with any one of them, but rather summarized all of them. Once again, Jesus gets an "A+" for the day. In essence, Jesus was pointing out how all of the commandments given in scripture are for the purpose of orienting our love to God, rather than giving us religious principles by which we can become legalists and haughty rule-followers (as the religious leaders of the day were doing). Jesus was frankly saying that the primary commandment of the scriptures was to love God fully, and that all of the other commands would flow out from that (including the love of people, which we don't have time to get into today).

But what did Jesus mean when he spoke of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Firstly, Jesus meant that we ought to love God with everything. Although we can certainly break these four distinctions down, we must first realize that they were not meant to be distinctions but rather descriptions of how we ought to love God, that is, with every part of who we are. Secondly, we can point out the differences in these four parts. To love God with our heart is to love him with the core of who we are; to love God with our soul is to love him with our emotion; to love God with our mind is to love him with our decisions; and to love God with our strength is to love God with our physical bodies. In short, we must love God intellectually, emotionally, volitionally, and physically, that is, with every part of who we are.*

But what does it mean to love God? Well, John 14:15 (and many other scriptures) show us that there is a direct correlation between loving God and obeying God. Thus, if we love God, we will obey God, and if we obey God, we will love God. Thus, a love for God is an obedience to his commands.

So, how are you loving (or in other words, obeying) God with all of who you are? What part of you is failing to love God today? How can you love God better with all of who you are? I pray that you might learn to love him more! Amen!

*Much of this paragraph was adapted from John Macarthur's sermon "Loving God" from Mark 12. You should listen to it! Here's the link: https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/41-63/loving-god