AN IMPORTANT COMMAND - All Our Daily Bread Daily Devotionals for 2025

Our Daily Bread - Thursday, February 4, 2016
by RBC Ministries

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AN IMPORTANT COMMAND

READ:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
-Mark 12:30

THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:
Exodus 34-35
Matthew 22:23-46

When asked by a lawyer to identify the most important rule in life, Jesus replied, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). In those words, Jesus summed up what God desires most from us.
I wonder how I can possibly learn to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind. Neal Plantinga remarks on a subtle change in this commandment as recorded in the New Testament. Deuteronomy charges us to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength (6:5). Jesus added the word mind. Plantinga explains, "You shall love God with everything you have and everything you are. Everything."
That helps us change our perspective. As we learn to love God with everything, we begin to see our difficulties as "our light and momentary troubles" - just as the apostle Paul described his grueling ordeals. He had in mind a "far more exceeding and eternalglory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).
In the advanced school of prayer, where one loves God with the entire soul, doubts and struggles do not disappear, but their effect on us diminishes. "We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19), and our urgent questions recede as we learn to trust His ultimate goodness. - Philip Yancey
Once earthly joy I craved, sought peace and rest;
Now Thee alone I seek, give what is best.
This all my prayer shall be:
More love, O Christ, to Thee. - Prentiss

The most treasured gift we can give to God is one that He can never force us to give - our love.

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