More Than a Piece: Loving God with All Your Heart, Soul, and Mind

If you could ask Jesus any question, what would it be? Would it be something about your future? Wisdom for a decision? Your kids or family? Your job? Buying that new house or car? How to become a better person, spouse, or parent? A difficult theological question? In Matthew 22, we see someone come and ask Jesus a big, important question, perhaps one of the most important questions we could ask. His question is found in verse 36, when this man, an expert in the law, says to Jesus, “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” (CSB)

This question comes in a series of other questions meant to trap Jesus while he is teaching in the temple in Matthew 22. It is not a question asked with sincerity, but as verse 35 says, it is meant to “test” Jesus. He, along with the others questioning Jesus, is trying to get Jesus to say something wrong or foolish. They’re trying to put him in a situation where he will lose credibility with the crowd. Jesus, however, is not playing his games and will not fall into his trap. 

Jesus responds to the question in Matthew 22:37-40: “He said to him, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.’” (CSB)

Jesus answers this question by saying the greatest command in the law is actually two commands. The two greatest, most important laws in the entire law and prophets are: love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says all of the “Law and Prophets depend on these two commands.” This means that everything we see in the entire Old Testament, and really all of Scripture, can be summarized with these two commands. Nothing in the Bible can make sense without these two commands–everything depends on them. This is why these verses are referred to as The Great Commandments. In this post, we will look in detail at the first commandment, loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind.

What does Jesus mean by this? What does it mean to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind? Through these words, Jesus is calling us to love God with everything we have. When God calls us to love him, he calls us to love him with every part of our being. This idea would not have been new to Jesus’ audience either. In his answer, Jesus is actually quoting from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which says:

“Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.” (CSB)

This passage is referred to as the Shema (Hebrew word meaning “hear” or “listen”), and it was something ancient Jews would pray every day. It was a way of reminding them that their lives were to be centered on loving God with everything they had. When Deuteronomy 6 says to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength, or when Jesus says to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, it does not mean we love God with only those areas. It is the Bible’s way of referring to our entire self. We love God with and through our emotions, our will, our thoughts, and our actions. We love God with our time, schedules, energy, desires, and goals. When we love God, we love God with everything. We love him in all areas of our lives. We give him our best, our all. It’s giving full devotion to God in every area of our lives.

When we love God in this way, it is not a ranking system where we love God first, and then our spouse and children, and then our extended family, and then our friends, and so on. Loving God this way means that our love for God is at the center of everything we are and everything we do. My love for God should permeate every relationship we have, every decision we make, every aspect of our lives. It should impact and challenge the way we treat our spouse, the way we parent our children, the way we speak to (and about) our boss, and the way we respond in challenging circumstances. We do not love God first and then everyone and everything else after that. It is our fully devoted love for God that leads us to love our spouse, children, family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and strangers the way God wants us to. Our love for God leads, guides, directs, and influences our thoughts, actions, decisions, and responses in all parts of our lives. Our love for God is to be centered around and flow to every part of who we are and what we do. This is what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Now the question becomes, how do we love God in this way? How do we live in such a way that our lives are centered around God and our love for him?

To love God with every part of our being, we are to love God with our head, heart, and hands.

Love God with our Head

Loving God fully means we first have to know who God is. This is why loving God with our heads (our minds) is so important. This is true in any relationship. We can love certain things about other people, but we cannot love them fully without a deep knowledge and understanding of them. To grow in our love for God, we have to grow in our knowledge of God. This is what it means to be a disciple. The word for “disciple” in the Bible refers to someone who is a student or pupil of a teacher or leader. When we put our faith in God, we commit to a lifetime of learning more and more about him. When we learn more about God–his character, actions, and heart for us and others–the deeper we will love him. In his love and grace towards us, God has given us many ways we can learn more about him. The primary way is through the Bible. The Bible is God’s revelation to us so that we can learn about him and what it means to follow him. To love God with our mind, we start with the Bible. We read it, study it, memorize it, and walk in obedience to it. Another way is through learning and studying doctrine and theology. Throughout church history, God has given us so many intelligent, Spirit-filled men and women to learn from. Take advantage of their insight and learn from them. A third way to learn more about God is through our own church and Christian community. This is one of the gifts of the church. Through community, we learn from one another as we all seek to follow Jesus together. We can encourage and challenge one another, and spur each other on towards deeper love of God and good works (Hebrews 10:24-25). 

As we learn more about God and commit to walk in his ways, our beliefs and thoughts about him, us, and the world begin to shift and come more in line with God’s beliefs and thoughts. This is what Paul speaks about in Romans 12:2 when he says, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (CSB). Part of how God sanctifies us (makes us more like him) is through transforming and renewing our minds. To follow him and live as he calls us to, our beliefs and thoughts have to be in line with his. We have to believe like God, think like God, and see the world and those around us like God. The more our minds are transformed, renewed, and match that of God, the more we will love God with every part of our lives. 

Love God with our Heart

When the Bible speaks about loving God with our heart and soul, it is speaking of our innermost being. It is speaking about the desires we have and the things we want most. If we agree that we want to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, then we have to examine our desires. Who or what do we actually, truthfully want most in life? Who or what do we listen to, follow, and give the most influence to in our lives? When we examine our desires and answer these types of questions, what we tend to find is that, far too often, we have a divided heart. We have a heart divided up with one piece for our family, one piece for our friends, one piece for our ambitions, one piece for our comfort, and yes, one piece for God. This is not what God wants from us. He does not want a piece of our heart; he wants the whole thing. He wants our desires, devotion, and love to be entirely wrapped up in him. This is not because God is like some selfish person demanding more of our time, love, and attention than we can give. It is because he knows that when we give our hearts fully to him, that is what is best for us. The Bible calls these pieces of our heart, the people and things we give our love and desires to, idols. Anything other than God that we devote our lives to is an idol. These can be really good things and may not seem or be bad or harmful, but they can become a problem when we give too much of ourselves to that person or thing. When we give too much of ourselves to something, we elevate that person or thing to a God-like status in our hearts. We look to that person or thing to provide what we are longing for or searching for. We look to that person or thing to guide us, rescue us, or satisfy us. These people or things may be able to do that for a season, but they will always eventually let us down. They will eventually leave us lonely, desperate, and broken. God wants so much better for us than the state of brokenness this world causes. He wants us to know and believe deep in our hearts that he is where we find provision, guidance, help, satisfaction, and salvation. He is where we find all the things our hearts really long for and need. 

Isaiah 55:1-2 says, “Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; and you without silver, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without silver and without cost! Why do you spend silver on what is not food, and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest of foods” (CSB).

We are all thirsty and hungry for something in life. We can spend our time, energy, resources, and desires trying to find those things in this world, and it will leave us empty. Instead, God invites us to come to him, come and find all that we are longing for, and it will not cost us anything. He gives it to us freely. When we truly believe this, that is when our desires will be directed towards God. That is when we will say that what we desire most in life is God, and that is when we will start to love God with all our heart.

Love God with our Hands

Once our minds are aligned with God and our desires are for him most of all, the last step is to demonstrate that with our actions. Our behaviors and actions (hands) always flow from what we think and believe (head and heart). Our actions reveal what we actually think and believe to the world around us, not just what we say we believe. In John 14:21, Jesus says, “The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him” (CSB). Here, Jesus reminds us of something that we all know to be true: when we love someone, our actions will demonstrate that love (or lack of love). If we say we love Jesus, then our lives need to show that by walking in obedience to his ways. James 2 tells us that we cannot have faith without works. This does not mean that works play a role in our salvation, but rather that our works should flow from and be a clear demonstration of our faith in Jesus. Before that, in James 1:22-25, the author tells us what obedience to Jesus looks like:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (ESV)

It is not enough to just hear the word. It is not enough to just read the word. Hearing and reading Scripture is important. If we are going to follow Jesus and love God, we first have to know what the word says. It just cannot stop there. As James says, that would be like looking at our reflection in a mirror and immediately forgetting what we look like when we walk away. We have to hear, read, and do what Scripture says. 

Growing in our obedience to Jesus and deepening our love for God does not always happen in big, powerful, supernatural moments. God certainly does big, powerful, supernatural things in our lives, but that is not the only, or even typical, way he works in our lives. Growth comes in the everyday, mundane moments of our lives. If we desire to grow in our love for and faith in God, we have to think of obedience in the little moments of our lives. Oftentimes, God works slowly and through the simple, everyday moments to make us more like him. When it comes to loving God with our actions, think of loving God and obeying him moment by moment. What does obedience look like in this moment? What does avoiding anger look like in this moment? What does laying my pride down look like in this conversation? What does loving my spouse or loving my kids look like today? How can I serve my neighbor today? How can I be generous in this moment? How can I share Jesus in this conversation? 

This is what loving God with our hands looks like. We constantly ask ourselves what obedience to him looks like in every moment of our days. As we say yes to God more in those everyday moments, he works to deepen our love for him and make us more like him. 

According to Jesus, the greatest commandment, the greatest thing we can do with our lives, is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. He invites us to commit our entire lives to him, to walk in full, complete devotion to him. Not to just give part of ourselves to him, but all of us, every part of us, to him. This is the type of love and devotion that renews our minds, captures our desires, and directs our actions. It is the type of love that God uses to grow us and shape us into believers who look and live more and more like him.