Deep Breath; You Can Do This
“...You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind…” -Luke 10:27
We have been talking about how to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul for the past few weeks. Today, we will talk about loving God with all our strength. Every week we start off with the same question…how? How do we love God with all our strength? I’m guessing many of us are not going to like the answer this week. The answer to this one really will turn the world upside down for some people.
I struggled to write this blog this week. I just could not get started. No words were coming. I began to pray and ask God what it was that He wanted to say through me this week, and a song popped into my head. I am a big fan of music…all genres of music. The song that came to mind was by an artist named Lecrae. I know that he has become a little controversial for some people in recent years, but honestly, who hasn’t these days? This song is one of his older songs and is the song that introduced me to him many, many years ago. It is called, “Background”, and I really believe that the lyrics describe one of the ways that we can love God with all our strength.
Loving God with all your strength is being strong enough to let Him take the lead. It is being strong enough to admit and accept that your role is the supporting role, and God plays the lead. It is having the strength to admit and accept that you don’t actually know what is best for you and that He has a better way. Loving God with all your strength is yielding to His wisdom and His way, even and especially when it doesn’t make sense to you or anyone else. Your role in life is to glorify your Creator despite the pressure from the world to glorify yourself.
There are multiple stories throughout scripture of people trying to do things their own way or in their own time rather than letting God take the lead. Abram and Sarai tried to make God’s promise for them come to pass in their own time, and we all know how that turned out. What would have happened if Noah had tried to build the ark on his own? What would have happened if Job had listened to the world around him and not trusted God to get him through?
Loving God with all your strength is being strong enough to let go of your own wants and desires and what you think is best. It is being strong enough to let go of the way you think something needs to be done. Loving God with all your heart is being strong enough to admit and accept that you can’t do it all on your own. We love to tell our children that they can be whatever they want to be in life. Unfortunately, that is simply not true. Loving God with all our strength is being strong enough to admit and accept that you can’t be whatever you want to be. God made you on purpose for a purpose. Our goal should be to become who God created us to be, not who we think we want to be. That is a hard pill to swallow.
Perhaps, the hardest way to love God with all our strength is this last one. Loving God with all your strength is being strong enough to stand against the ways of this world.
The story that always comes to mind for me when talking about standing against the ways of the world is that of Peter denying Jesus three times before He was crucified. Here was a man that Peter had been living with and learning from for three years. Peter had told Jesus just a few verses before that he was ready to go to jail with Him and even die with Him. Fast forward a few verses, and Peter can’t even muster up the strength to stand firm in the face of a teenage girl’s accusation. Sadly enough, I can relate. Maybe you can too.
We have talked about this before. The world wants you to believe that everything is about you. It wants you to believe that you are the center of the universe. The world’s way is self-reliance. According to the world, admitting that you can’t do everything on your own is a sign of weakness. The world will tell you that if you are not first, you are last, and if you are last, you are worthless. It will encourage you to always look out for number one. The world will tell you that you deserve things. It reassures you that talking about how things should be and what other people should be doing is enough. It feeds you the lie that as long as you talk loud enough, you won’t have to actually do anything. The world will work to convince you that words like “obedience,” “submit,” and “yield” are dirty words used by others to keep you down.
Yes, standing against the ways of this world is hard. It will take all the strength you have some days. But if you want to truly learn to love God with all your strength, it will be absolutely necessary. God’s kingdom turns this world and it’s ways upside down. I wish I could give you a nice little three step system that is easy and comes naturally. I wish there was an easier way. Maybe there is. If so, I don’t know about it. As always, I could be completely off base in my thinking here. I am no scholar. I am just a girl that loves spending time with her Daddy and is willing to share the things He has allowed me to experience in my time with Him.
The bottom line is this…you have to go to Him and ask Him these hard questions yourself. You can’t rely on me, Pastor Clay, or anyone else to tell you how to love God with everything that you are. Only God can do that. Ask Him how you can love Him with all your heart. Ask Him what it would look like for you to love Him with all your mind. Ask Him what it would mean for you to love Him with all your soul. Go to Him and tell Him that you are ready to love Him with all your strength, and then ask Him to help you do that. Be ready to be moved out of your comfort zone. Be ready for answers you may not like or want to hear. Jesus warns us of the cost of following Him at the end of Luke 9. The thing is, the benefits far outweigh the cost. Don’t take my word for it; take His word for it.
Here are just a few verses that I hope will encourage you as you seek to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. This is not an exhaustive list. It is not necessarily easy to do this, but the best things in life are not easy, they are worth it. Be encouraged by the promises in God’s word and be encouraged in the knowledge that you are not walking this road alone. You have a family here at Next Level Church praying for you, cheering you on, and walking alongside you in our attempt to love God with all that we have and all that we are.