Loving God

Jesus replied, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37

In Matthew, Jesus provides the answer to God’s greatest commandment which is to love God first with everything we have. As I typed this in for the verse of the week, I thought about how often we may gloss over this well known verse. Do we really take the time to reflect on what we are being told to do? Do we understand it? Do we do it? Do we want to do it?

A little bit of guilt set in as I reflected on these questions because I not only asked how do I do this but knew a piece of me thought what kind of time does this take? Is this what I will have to do all the time? Pretty shortly after these very human and guilt-ridden questions ran through my mind, I realized that putting God first and showing Him love with all of me would improve the quality of my time as it would have a positive impact on all my relationships as well as my life overall.

When we put God first and love Him with our heart, soul, and mind, His Spirit makes changes within us that allow us to show love to others in the way God intended. Our hearts, character, actions, and behaviors change in ways that allow us to grow and be more like Jesus. When we put Him first, everything else falls into place.

So how do we follow this command and integrate it into our lives?

First, we have to want to. We have to want to turn our hearts towards Jesus, and want to spend time with Him. We need to define what this looks like for us and for our relationship with the Lord. And then we need to act on it. There is no prescription for this, and I believe that our relationship with the Lord is uniquely personal to each of us.

However, I know when my heart wanted a deeper relationship with God, I wanted someone to tell me what to do or provide me with something that would help me take action to feel closer to Him. Below is a list of some suggestions you can try to begin to actively love God and integrate Him into your daily life.

1. Pray Daily-Practice talking to God anywhere and everywhere, about everything.
2.  Praise Him-When blessings show themselves, pause to praise God as immediately as you can.
3. Read His Word Daily-Integrate reading God’s Word into your daily routine. There are many options for this-a daily devotional, Bible app, opening your Bible to wherever you choose, etc.
4. Start Small-Making something a habit takes commitment and time. Starting something new can be exciting but also overwhelming if we decide to do all the things at one time. I recommend choosing something your heart tells you to begin with and stick with that before adding more.

Matthew 22:37 offers us so much more than inspiration. It is a guide to living like Jesus which can transform our lives and our eternity. I pray you begin to see how loving God first is more than action, it is a way of life.