19th July 2023

19th July 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - Mark 12:28-34


Message Alan Burke 


If you skipped Monday’s devotion we were beginning to think of what is knowing ‘The Greatest Commandment’ as one of the teachers of the law asks the question “Which commandment is the most important of all”. Jesus responds to the man and quotes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Now that you are brought up to speed compare the words that I have quoted from Deuteronomy 6 with what Jesus says in Mark 12:29. While there is only a slight difference it is significant none the less. Jesus adds to the requirement to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might, he adds “with all your mind”. 


The heart in scripture, doesn’t speak of the organ that pumps blood around the body but the seat of your emotions, your will, your motivation, your affections. At the end of the grinch stole Christmas his heart grew three times that day and he gave all the presents back so even in popular culture we get what is being meant here. The soul, well that’s our life, in Jewish thought it spoke of the soul as the life, vitality that you have. Without a soul the body is lifeless and the imagery is given to us in Genesis 2:7. So you have the imagery of heart, the seat of our emotions, the soul the life that we have and then in the Shema we are given strength. Strength, well we may feel that we are lacking the strength that we had but it refers to our physical strength, our capacities, our abilities, what we have that we can use for the Lord. 


And to these Jesus adds, “with all your mind”. Why does Jesus add this, why is this necessary, for we have our heart, our emotions, our souls our very life, and our strength, our capacities and abilities using them for the Lord but why mind. Well our love of God has to do with more than our emotions, more than our life, more than our strength it involves our mind, our intellect too, when our mind is engaged it is not possible just to go through the motions, it is not possible just to play act.  


Think about this, think about the reaching implications of this, because it’s not enough to have a preschool understanding of God, it is not enough to simply think we know all that we need to know and we have got our ticket as long as we show up on the Lord’s day just for good measure. No, Loving the Lord demands our emotions, our life, our strength but also our mind our intellect, has your understanding of who God is this week increased, have you got into his word and through through some of the eternal truths, are you going to chew the fat or are you happy for Christianity light? If you are unsure what I mean by Christianity light it’s ‘more me, less God’, it’s an anaemic relationship, lacking in what it should be.


The thing if we are all honest Jesus gives this command to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and none of us can say that we love the Lord our God as we should. But as we repent and believe because of his grace there is not one sin or many no matter how egregious that can cause that grace to be removed from us, but we should never be willing to just settle of mediocrity in our walk with the Lord, instead we should desire to Love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q102 What do we pray for in the second petition?
In the second petition, (which is, Thy kingdom come, (Matt. 6:10)) we pray, That Satan’ s kingdom may be destroyed; (Ps. 68:1,18) and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, (Rev. 12:10–11) ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; (2 Thess. 3:1, Rom. 10:1, John 17:9,20) and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened. (Rev. 22:20)
​