The Life of Discipleship, Part 2: Loving God with Our Whole Being

How do we express our love for God and what kind of response does God seek from us as His children, born into His kingdom through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross? In the book of Luke, Jesus taught us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27 NIV).

In Matthew’s account of this incident, we read that a lawyer (an expert in the law of the Old Testament) asked Jesus a question to test Him: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:36–40).

The command to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind that Jesus quotes here is found in Deuteronomy 6:5, which is meant to encapsulate the concept of total devotion to God. The accounts of this incident in the Gospels of Luke and Mark include another dimension by adding loving the Lord with all our strength (Mark 12:30).

Jesus makes the point that “on these two commandments” [loving God and neighbor] “depend all the Law and the Prophets.” In Mark’s version of this event, the scribe responds by saying,

You are right, Teacher. … To love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

When Jesus saw that the scribe had answered wisely, He responded by telling him that he was “not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:32–34).

Let’s take a look at what loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, strength and understanding means and how we can grow in expressing our love for God through every aspect of our lives and beings. This starts with our relationship with God, which is meant to be our closest and most intimate relationship, as the following article excerpts highlight.

God wants us to love Him with our whole being and in every possible way. God’s own Son taught us to love God the Father with everything we are, saying this was the first and greatest of all the commandments (Matthew 22:37–38). God wants us to love Him above all other things and beings. Lukewarm, halfhearted, or apathetic fondness for God won’t do. He wants our total devotion. … God desires to have an intimate love relationship with us. Our love for Him is a response to His divine love for us (1 John 4:19) …

Perhaps one of the purest examples in the Bible of how to love God comes from an unnamed woman who anointed the Lord’s feet with her perfume (Luke 7:36–50). So grateful was she for Christ’s forgiveness of her many sins that she poured out her love in extravagant worship and absolute devotion. This woman appreciated the true worth of her Savior, and in humble gratitude, sacrifice, and servitude, she loved and worshiped Jesus with her tears, her hair, her kisses, and her priceless bottle of perfume. She loved God with all she was and everything she had to offer.—Got Questions¹

As Christians, we are to love God with all of our being—with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s a call for rich, deep, and full love—a love-Him-with-everything-you’ve-got love. We are called into a close personal relationship with God, who Himself is relational, and as such, He seeks relationship with us.

The beautiful relationship God had with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was damaged because of their choice to sin. God is holy, so after sin came into the world, He could no longer have that same personal relationship with humans. His desire was to repair the relationship that sin ruptured and bring us back into relationship with Himself.

God is so passionate about being in relationship with us that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to sacrificially lay down His life through His death on the cross in order to bridge the gap between Himself and humanity (John 3:16). That’s how much He loves us. He actively seeks to be in relationship with us, because of His great love for us. And we are called to the same passionate love in our relationship with Him. As the verse says, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NKJV).

To convey His deep love for us, God used language and imagery in the Bible which speaks of us as being married to Him. He said, “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name” (Isaiah 54:5), and “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5). These marital metaphors describe the union of heart, mind, and spirit that He desires to have with each of us.

Our love for Him results in our desire to draw close to Him (James 4:8), to build a deep relationship with Him, and put effort into strengthening our relationship and growing into His likeness. To do so, we commit to spending regular time communicating with Him through prayer, praise, and worship, reading and studying His Word, and patterning our lives according to His will and the principles of His Word. We endeavor to grow in our love for Him—with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The following article excerpts provide some insight as to what this means and what it looks like.

It’s the most astounding truth in the universe—that our Creator wants to fellowship with us. God made you to love you, and He longs for you to love Him back. He says, “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me” (Hosea 6:6 TLB). Can you sense God’s passion for you in this verse?

God deeply loves you and desires your love in return. He longs for you to know Him and spend time with Him. This is why learning to love God and be loved by Him should be the greatest objective of your life. Nothing else comes close in importance. Jesus called it the greatest commandment…

God wants all of you. God doesn’t want a part of your life. He asks for all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. God is not interested in halfhearted commitment, partial obedience, and the leftovers of your time and money. He desires your full devotion. … He wants your honest, real love… [which] is the natural response to God's amazing love and mercy.—Rick Warren²

What does it mean to love God with all our soul? The Hebrew word for soul is nefesh (NEH-fesh). It means “life” as well as “soul.” In other words, we are to love God every moment of our lives. It even includes the idea that we should love God even to the point of sacrificing our lives for Him. It is certainly not enough to love God one day a week. Yeshua is [the] Lover of our Soul. He loved to the point of sacrificing His life for us. God loved the world (every soul) so much that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son for our salvation. Because we have been forgiven much, we can love much. (See Luke 7:47.) May we, by the grace of God, love Him with all our life. He is our life (Deuteronomy 30:20a).

To love God with all our might or strength, meod (may-ODE), means to love Him with all we’ve got—to love Him exceedingly well. It has been said that meod accents the superlative degree of total commitment to the Lord.—Jamie Lash³

To love God with all your mind means that you love God with your intellect, that you love God with determination and commitment. The Pharisees and religious leaders who confronted Jesus weren’t doing this. They were loving God with their words and their rituals but not with the totality of their being. If they had loved God with their minds, they would have put Him first and foremost in their lives. They would have obeyed Him fully.

In another place, Jesus made it very clear to His disciples, saying, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). Obeying requires a decision of the mind. It is a determination. ... If your will is in gear and ready to go—if you love God with all your mind—all of the other ways of loving the Lord are going to fall in place.—Dr. Michael Youssef ⁴

A central part of our discipleship is loving God so wholeheartedly that we are willing to align our lives according to the principles in His Word, thereby keeping His commands. We aspire to pattern ourselves after Jesus and to become more like Him. We desire to live our lives in a way that honors God, which is based on the knowledge of His Word, and with the awareness of and reverence for His constant presence within us.

When He says, “Follow Me,” He asks us to love Him so much that we choose to make Him our first priority; we place self in the right place in relation to God, who is sovereign over all of us. We make decisions to place His love at the center of our lives, to walk in His love and share His love with others. In short, we seek to live in a way that is pleasing to Him.

Whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him (1 John 3:22–24).

Understanding the principle of loving God with everything in us and following Him and His Word provides guidance for the life decisions we are regularly faced with. The basic principle being that God—our Creator, our Savior, and the Spirit that dwells within us—asks for and deserves our love and first place in our lives. This is the starting place of discipleship, and loving Him is at the center of living our discipleship. Our love for Christ—who gave His life for us—compels us, necessitates us, guides us, and urges us to love and worship Him fervently with all our hearts (2 Corinthians 5:14 NKJV), and to cultivate a close relationship with Him.

To “love God with all your heart” means to devote your entire being, including your affections, thoughts, and actions, to Him, prioritizing His will and seeking to please Him above all else.—C. S. Lewis

Those who love God cannot cease thinking of Him, living for Him, longing after Him, speaking of Him, and fain would they grave the Holy Name of Jesus in the hearts of every living creature they behold.—St. Francis of Sales

The most important commandment … is to treasure God and his realm more than anything else. That is what it means to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It means to treasure him, to hold him and his dear, and to protect and aid him in his purposes.—Dallas Willard

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23).

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments” (Deuteronomy 7:9 NIV).

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).

Dear God, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for bestowing upon us the incredible gift of Your Son, Jesus Christ. This selfless act of sacrifice is something I know I am unworthy of, yet He willingly gave Himself to save us from our sins. … I can’t help but utter the words of Psalm 106:1: “Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” Your steadfast love continues to amaze me, and I am forever grateful for Your endless grace and compassion. I bask in the glow of Your love, dear God. Thank You for the gift of Jesus, thank You for Your unfailing love, and thank You for every blessing You have bestowed upon us.⁵

¹ “What does the Bible say about how to love God?” GotQuestions.org, https://www.gotquestions.org/how-to-love-God.html

² Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (Zondervan, 2012).

³ Jamie Lash, “You Shall Love,” Jewish Jewels, February 1, 2022, https://www.jewishjewels.org/news-letters/you-shall-love/.

⁴ Dr. Michael Youssef, “Loving God with All Your Mind,” Leading the Way, May 2, 2023, https://ca.ltw.org/read/my-devotional/loving-god-with-all-your-mind/.

⁵ Everlasting Winter, “Rejoicing in God's Love: A Prayer of Gratitude,” December 26, 2023, https://www.talkjesus.com/threads/rejoicing-in-gods-love-a-prayer-of-gratitude.79690/.