Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength!
Today, it is a magnificent text that brings us together, Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5 which simply tells us: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength."
Which program ! This is the program of a lifetime! I would like to draw your attention today to the context. The Lord in fact is going to give his commandments to the people of Israel when this people has just been delivered from the land of Egypt and is going to enter the promised land. And in this in this promised land, there are promises of abundance, of blessing; there is prosperity, the happiness that awaits the people of Israel only if they keep the commandments of the Lord.
And here is the context: it is the first commandment "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength".
And I want to read the first verses before we get to this text:
"These are the commandments, laws and ordinances which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may do them in the land which you are about to take possession of, that you may fear the LORD your God by observing all the days of your life, you and your son and your son's son, all his statutes and all his commandments which I give you, and that your days may be long: therefore you shall listen to them, O Israel, and take care to put them in practice, that you may be happy and multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God, spoke to you of your fathers, promising you a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."
Who among us does not want blessing, happiness? There is simply this promise which is attached to obedience to this word. History shows us that, unfortunately, neither the people of Israel nor any other people, neither you nor I, could keep even the first commandment: you shall love the Lord your God. And what about the other commandments that tell us about relationships with others: you shall not lie, you shall not covet, you shall not kill, and so on.
We have deceived the heart of God. We have disobeyed the commandments. Today, it is possible to love the Lord with all your heart, with all your strength and with all your mind, with all your mind, with all your soul, how? first by receiving God's love.
Since God chose to love us first. He sent his Son to pay the price for our sins, mistakes, and failure to follow his commandments. We have not loved God, we have rejected him, we have lived our lives without him, we have committed the evil he abhors, but God has loved us in spite of everything. Jesus paid the price on the cross and today, with his grace, we can receive his infinite love.
I love this song so much from my friend Luc Dumont who says:
"It's easy to love you when you know who you really are, it's easy to love you because you loved me first."
It is simply biblical thinking that we want to practice. You can love the Lord with all your heart by first receiving his love for you. He paid the price for your sins, you are precious in his eyes. And simply, let him fill you with his love again, you will be able to overflow with love for him!
Be blessed my friend.
Tony Tornator
