Love Him As One

This morning I was reading through Deuteronomy and I come to chapter 6 verses 4-5 and I just stopped for a moment because I could feel the Holy Spirit stirring something in me. Check this out… This is a command that God gave Moses to tell the children of Israel.

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord your God is ONE! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

We are told this numerous times throughout the scriptures.

Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27.

I kept being drawn back to verse 4 – “Hear, O Israel! The Lord your God is ONE!” The Lord your God is ONE! Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three yet they are ONE! Did you know that we are created in His image? We are three yet one. We are spirit, living in a body and we have a soul (our mind, will and emotions). Let’s look on to verse 5 – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Love – ‘ahab – all loves in one

·         To desire, to breathe after, to desire in eager pursuit of

·         To love a friend – to love as you love yourself

·         To delight

Heart – lebab – understanding, inner man – where life derives from, the heart beats the blood of life through our bodies.

·         The seat of the soul

·         Seat of senses, affections and emotions of the mind

·         Seat of will and purpose

·         Intellect and wisdom

Labab – to ravish

Soul – nephesh – vitality, will, mind, emotion

Strength – m? ‘od – might, passion

·         Exceedingly great

Uwd – fire brand

You shall desire, breathe in and be in eager pursuit of the Lord your God loving Him with every kind of love. You are to love Him as you love yourself and delight in Him with all of your senses, understanding and from the depths of your inner man. Love Him with all of your will and purpose, intellect, and wisdom. You are to ravish Him in love, just as He ravishes us in His love! We are to love Him with all of our mind, will, and vitality! With all of our might, fire and passion!

We are three in one, just as He is three in ONE! We can not love Him with only a part of us, we must love Him as ONE – with every part of ourselves! And when we can love Him as ONE, we will follow His command with great passion!

We have four requirements that fall in line with Deuteronomy 6:4-5 here in Deuteronomy 10:12-13 – “What does the Lord your God require from you? 1. To fear Him. 2. To walk in all His ways and LOVE Him. 3. Serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul! 4. Keep His commandments and statutes.

To love the Lord our God means to fear Him...  True, reverential fear/ awe of God brings us to a place of deeply desiring to be obedient to Him, it brings us to a place of holiness. Those who do not fear the Lord do not live a lifestyle of holiness as we are commanded to live. When we fear God we truly find ourselves so in love with Him that we can’t even stand in His presence, we can’t go without Him, we passionately pursue Him, anything that is even questionable in the life of a child of God is eliminated from our lives … To fear Him is to follow the command of Deuteronomy 6:4-5!

To love the Lord our God means to walk as Jesus walked on this earth! It means to follow His Word, His ways and what is His way? LOVE! John 14:23-24 tells us this… Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with Him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words, and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” To walk in His ways is to truly love unconditionally, you’ll hear me say this more than once, but when we love as He loves, we will naturally follow His commands and walk in His ways, which is exactly how Jesus walked this earth. He said, “I do as My Father does and I speak as My Father speaks.”

To love the Lord our God is to serve Him with our gifts, the gift of ourselves! We all are a unique gift to the kingdom of God. We are vessels of great price and He wants us prepared and ready to be of great kingdom use! We see so many people doing nothing with their gifts because they don’t feel they have a place, but without you giving of your gift of service, someone else may be missing out because they’re waiting on you to serve Him with all that you are. We are to serve Him through our life, our mind, our will and our emotions! Every act, behavior, action, attitude and every breath you take should be in service to Him!

1 Corinthians 16:14 “Let all you do be done in love!!”

To love the Lord our God is to follow His commands! No, I’m not talking about the hundreds of laws throughout the O.T., I’m talking about the new command that He has given us. Look here… John 13:34-35 Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

To love God as one being instead of just with certain parts of us, is to love others also!

1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love, does not know God, for God is love.”

To love the Lord our God who is ONE, is to truly love Him as ONE – with all that we are! It is to love others as He loves us! When we follow His one and greatest command… We will automatically follow the ten commandments because they are all based around LOVE!

“Hear, My son, My daughter! The Lord your God is ONE! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

I love what Moses tells Israel before he gives this command, he says, “Do this command so that you, your children and your grandchildren might fear the Lord your God and keep His statutes and commandments all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged… You should listen and be careful to do it, THAT it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey” (in other words… YOUR PROMISE He has promised you)!

When we see God as ONE and love Him as ONE (with every part of ourselves), things just happen in our lives, generations are touched, our days are prolonged, He multiplies us in many ways and our promises are fulfilled! To love God is to live a truly blessed life… a kingdom life full of righteousness, peace and joy!