Wholehearted love

Deuteronomy 6.1-25

This note was originally published on Friday 27 February 2015.

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’

Prepare

If someone spent a week watching everything you did, listening to everything you said, seeing everything you thought, how much of your heart would they say you love God with?

Read

Deuteronomy 6.1-25

Explore

Jesus himself used verses 4 and 5 as a way of summarising the Law (Mark 12.29, 30). It is the central prayer in Judaism, called the Shema (‘Hear’). It tells us that the way to respond to our one and only God is to love him with all our heart, soul and strength, as he first loved us (4.37; 7.7, 8).

But loving God wholeheartedly is hard! We have busy diaries; we can’t spend every second on our knees in prayer! So what can we do to ensure we show God wholehearted love?

1) God’s commandments were about his people living his way in the place he had given them to live (vs 6, 18, 19). Do you live his way, or follow your own agenda?

2) Repeatedly Moses encourages the people to tell the stories of what God has done, to share the commandments with each other, including children (vs 7, 20–25). Do you let these daily Bible readings and notes sink in, or skip-read through them on your way to more important things?

3) Where are the ‘door-frames’ in your life? How can you ‘wear’ God’s promises and commandments (vs 8, 9), so you don’t forget what he has done, every day (v 12)?

Respond

Find a door- frame (literal or metaphorical), and put a verse from Scripture on it, so you will see it every day and remember to be a wholehearted lover of God.