“Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (Matt 22:34a). There are two Old Testament verse jump to mind as I think of ways to measure or gauge how I am doing in the area of loving with “all my heart.” The first is Proverbs 3: 5-6 which says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understand, acknowledge him in all you do and He will make your path straight.” Like loving God, we are to trust wholly in the Lord also. So how is your trust level? As our prosperity increase there seems to be a corresponding decrease in our trust in God and acknowledgement of God in our daily lives. It seems that trust in God fully and loving God wholly should be pushing us into an ever deepening relationship with God. The second verse is in the next chapter of Proverbs. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our heart, for out of it comes the wellspring of life. We need to protect our heart from those things that would interfere with trusting and loving God. How often are we robbed by the little things? For me, it is spending time in the morning reading the comics rather than reading my Bible. Or worse justifying starting work a little early instead of taking by quiet time. You see I am doing it for God, right?
So how is your trust issue with God? Do you acknowledge him in all you do? Does this then help you love God a little more? Are you being drawn into a deeper more intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father? Are you guarding that relationship? How about the guarding of the heart so the relationship can continue to grow?
Posted by strscoa on Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:29
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Category Loving God/
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It is interesting, when I preached on this subject a few weeks ago I gave a challenge at the end of the message for the people to assess the percentage of their loving God with all their heart, soul, and mind. From the text we are to love God with “all” our heart, soul, and mind. If my math is correct that comes out to be 100%. But how is it we measure these things? What does loving God with all our heart look like? What does loving God with all our mind look like? What does it look like to love God with all our soul? What does it look like to love our neighbor as our self? In a men’s group that I am a part of (see the Focus of a Warrior section of the blog) we have been challenged to describe what our values look like, how they are played out in our life. By doing this we have the ability to test, measure, or assess how we are doing with regards to living out the given value. This is the direction I am headed with this topic. Over the next few weeks I will be putting forward ideas on what each of these “lovings” look like in my life so that I will have a gauge with which to measure my progress in the area of “loving God” and “loving my neighbor.”
Posted by strscoa on Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:33
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Is it nature or nurture that makes us who we are? I would say both. God has created us unique individuals wired to be who we are. Some are introverts while others are extraverts. Some have the gift of gab while others are more reflective in their conversations. I think the key is to realize how it is God has created you and use that to glorify Him. In 1 Corinthians (1 Corinthians 12:12-26) Paul uses the analogy of the body to describe the community of believers. One is not better or worse than the other, but in fact all are important. That's nature in a nutshell.
Not only are we a product of how God created us, but we are also a product of the experiences that we have gone through in life. God can and does use our experiences to mold us into the women and men He wants us to be. Because of our nature and our nurture, we become unique individuals that God can then use for specific roles in kingdom work.
Posted by strscoa on Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:04
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Category Focus of a Warrior
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