All of us

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

ALL OF US

Luke 10:25-28

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"  27 He answered: "'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.'" 28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."  

NIV

The man asked and was answered with a question. Why did Jesus ask him this? He went straight to the truth with Nicodemus about having to be born again, so why would he ask this man what the law said. We have to conclude as Jesus knew the heart of Nicodemus, he also knew the heart of this man, and he needed him to find this answer. The man quoted both from Deuteronomy and Leviticus which Jesus told him if he actually did that he would live. We are going to see this man seemed to not have a problem with the  first part, about loving the Lord God with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength and with all  his mind, but he is going to have a problem with the neighbor thing. Yet for now we should remain focused on all this loving the Lord our God. To love God with every fiber of our being carries a very important message. To love God with our heart implies we are willing to sacrifice all else, all other desires in order to please him. Nothing in this world should draw our hearts to them. We should have no other desires other than for God. This is difficult at best, for we live here, with certain needs. Surely God does not intend for us to be homeless, jobless and destitute, but at the same time we should not make all the things of the world our focus, he is our Lord and our God and we should love him with all our heart, not some of it, not divided between him and stuff. Our soul, is in fact our life. We should love him with all our life. That is to say, if we need to, we should be willing to give up our life for his sake. Surely many of the disciples did. Most of us may never be asked to die for the cause of God, but the fact remains we need to be willing to do just that. When we talk about strength and loving God with all of ours, it requires action on our part. We cannot simply talk the walk, but we should be walking the talk. How much physical effort are we putting into our love? Certainly not all of us can be in full time ministry, making all our efforts toward advancing the kingdom. But then even those individuals have to maintain their own homes, shop for food, and live in the realm of daily life. How much physical effort do we do for God? Is that just about doing acts of service in the church? Can we serve God with all our strength in our daily living? When we work are we working for the Lord or for ourselves? When we maintain our homes are we doing to bring glory to God or ourselves? When we play, either at some sport or hobby, do we do that to bring glory to God or self? When it comes to our mind, our thoughts, our intelligence, are we focused on knowing God, knowing more of God, knowing more about him, his word, his design and desire for our lives? Do we spend as much time learning about God as we do in order to achieve some degree from a university? Do we spend as much time learning about God as we do learning about anything else? What do we think about most of our day? Is it God? If we are to love him with our mind, which would imply that is exactly what we should be doing. Thinking about him with all our thoughts which would mean not thinking about self so much. This is a big life lesson. We know it, but to actually implement it requires constant attention. Will we succeed all the time? Maybe not, but that should be our goal, our desire, to love the Lord our God with all of our being.