The mission statement of Bethel is: Loving God, Loving People, Called to Serve. Let's define what loving God means according to the scriptures. In fact the command, the encouragement or call to love God is all found in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. In fact the admonition in the Law was to love God. Deuteronomy 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all our strength." This is one of the key verses within the Jewish faith that they memorize and repent frequently. Jesus restated this in response to a question; Matthew 22:37 "Jesus replied; "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." It is very clear that if I am going to be a Christian, a genuine follower of Jesus Christ, then I must learn to love God in ways that God wants to be loved. Within these two verses alone we have four characteristics of how we ought to love God. By the way in each of these characteristics the word 'all' in present. This clearly means that we are to put much effort into loving God, we are to have this as our highest priority and we are to be loving God consistently. Now to the four characteristics: first, I am to love God with all my heart. This means I am to give God my emotions, I am to be all in this relationship with God. I must learn how to love God up front and not at a distance. Second, I am to love God with all my soul. This means I give Him everything that I have and holding nothing back. Third, I am to love God with all my strength. This means it takes a lot of effort to do the right things in loving God. This will involve discipline and consistency in doing the right things. Fourth, I am to love God with my mind. I do not check out my mind when I am loving God. God wants us to know Him and in order to do that I must study and think and meditate upon God and His word. This is just a very brief overview of what it means to love God but before I close this thought there are two very important outcomes within my life when I begin to love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength and with all my mind. My life will be characterized by a life of worship and a life of obedience to God. If I am not growing in worship and my level of obedience I ought to examine myself in how I am approaching my love for God.
May the God who loves us more then we can imagine strengthen us with grace so we can Love God as priority one in our lives.
Pastor John
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