Loving God with all your soul is a little more complicated of an area to consider. If loving God, when we cannot see Him, is difficult because of the abstract nature of it, then certainly loving Him with all of your soul only compounds that complexity. It helps to understand that while the Jewish believe the heart is where we experience and express much of what makes us a person (intellect, emotion, will), the soul is our essence.
God’s Breath
Remember, essence is our intrinsic nature or the indispensable quality that determines our character. Soul, also translated as breath, is God’s breath of life or the thing that animates our bodies. It is the thing that God joined with our physical body and made it alive and what it means to be created in God’s image. When God breathed life into us, He was putting into us both His essence and the characteristics that make us, us. He animated our body with life that is Him.
Loving God with all your soul is about loving God with all of who you are. The Jews believe that the soul is the seat of our emotions because our emotions are a part of who we are. So loving God with all our soul includes our emotional responses to God. I’ve always been an emotional person, but the way that manifested before and after God is quite different.
Your Soul is You
Before God, my emotions came out often as anger. During that time, I might’ve called it passion, but it was anger. There were other emotions, but I think anger was the most frequent and predominate one. After God got a hold of me, I started crying a lot. Not because I’m sad, maybe sometimes, but mostly because I often feel overwhelmed with a lot; joy, amusement, awe, and relief. I also feel more compassionate toward others. To be clear, this was my emotional journey and is not intended to be indicative of how everyone’s journey should go. So, while there is an emotional aspect to this, it’s far more than that. Loving God with all your soul is manifested in you being you. That means relating and responding to Him with the character, personality, and emotions with which He created you.
Be You for Them
Again, living out the New Command, “to love each other”, is the best way to see this manifested. If by nature, you’re a nurturing person, that character trait is most directly God-honoring when it is directed back to Him through nurturing His body. If you’re a steadfast “rock “type person, you show your love for God best when you provide support for His people. Because your soul is who you are, if you’re creative, then you create. But you create for the good of others, starting with those in His body. Loving God with all your soul has everything honoring those in His body with who you are.
Excerpt from my book, Three Commands: Jesus’ Fulfillment of the Law Through Love. You can purchase the book HERE.
One of my favorite interactions between Jesus and Peter occurs on a beach after Jesus is resurrected. It’s found in John 21 and involves Jesus asking Peter if he loves Him multiple times, while they walk together. This is a great conversation to help understand what it means to love God with all your heart.
When Jesus asked Peter if he loves Him, the word He uses for love is the Greek word agape. But, Peter used a different Greek word for love in his reply. He used phileo. It may not seem like a big deal, but if you understand the nuanced meaning of each, it’s enormous.
Two Loves
Agape is a divine love, which originates from God, the idea of love as an essence that we discussed earlier. It is a selfless, generous, and sacrificial love that expresses a deep affection in the form of action. It is a love that moves a person to extend love before all the circumstances of a situation might be known. Agape is not a human love, although, as Christians, we aspire to love this way. Instead, it is the kind of love that is necessary for loving your enemy.
Phileo love, on the other hand, is most accurately defined as brotherly love, or a love defined by closeness to another. It’s the kind of love that you think of when in connection to loving a sibling or a dear friend. Most sermons I’ve heard suggest that Jesus used the word agape all three times that He asked the question and that Peter answered the first two times using the word phileo, then changed his answer the third time, using the word agape.
The suggestion here is that Peter caught on to what Jesus was asking, finally understood, and answered with the “right” word the third time. Third time’s the charm, right? It seems logical that Peter, like the rest of us, would have finally understood the answer Jesus wanted. Then, with his new understanding, he finally answers correctly. Except, that isn’t how it’s actually in the text; it occurred the other way around.
HE Meets Us
After asking twice if Peter loved him unconditionally, with this divinely generous and sacrificial agape love, and Peter responding twice that he loved Jesus with the brotherly affection of phileo love, it was Jesus who changed His words. The third time Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, He asked, “Do you phileo me?” Only then comes Peter’s most desperate answer, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love (phileo) you.” There could be any number of reasons why Jesus changed which word He used, but I think it points to the beauty of an essential truth of Christ. Jesus will, and does, fully meet us wherever we find ourselves in life. He allows us to give only what we’re capable of giving at that time, all the while inviting us to “follow Him” as He leads us toward more. There’s comfort in that. There’s rest in that.
And for Peter, after such a devastating event as denying Christ, it was merciful for Jesus to allow him to extend the love he was capable of giving. From a human standpoint, it makes sense that Peter’s denial would have affected his confidence in how much he loved Jesus.
Demand v. Desire
One of the truths of this interaction is that Jesus doesn’t demand that we love Him with agape love, especially if we’re not ready for it. However, Him asking Peter twice does show that He desires it. And if He does, is it even possible to love Him that way? If so, how do we get there? The answer is in Jesus’ response to Peter. All three times that Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him He responded to Peter with “tend my sheep” or “feed my sheep.” Jesus points Peter toward caring for and teaching those who would choose to follow Him. It seems like Jesus is communicating two things here. The first points to what our actions will look like if we profess to love Him with agape, and the second is how to grow toward loving Him with agape.
Love for Christ
Our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is a direct reflection of the type of love we have for Christ. If I’m honest, it shows me that most often, I have phileo love for Jesus. And while that’s okay, and Jesus accepts that He still desires for me to love him with agape love. That only happens in community with other Christians. And because I desire to love Christ like that, hopefully without the actual physical cross at the end of it, I have to love His bride. What Jesus, and the rest of the Bible, makes clear is that your love and honor of God’s people is the best indication of your love and honor for God. Not only that, the Body is the one place that you can practice and learn what it means and looks like to love that way.
Loving God with all your heart has everything to do with opening it to those in the Body.
Excerpt from my book, Three Commands: Jesus’ Fulfillment of the Law Through Love. You can purchase the book HERE.
Like many Christians, I used to worry a lot about my “calling”. Most of the worry has to do with the pressure leaders place on the importance of finding and fulfilling that “one thing” we are supposed to do for God. These leaders never intend that to be the case. Most, if not all, simply want us to realize and accept the invitation that God extends to us to join Him in His work. Unfortunately, it can often come off in a way that it is the most important thing we need to figure out. Almost as if not figuring it out makes us ineffective in God’s kingdom.
So we wrestle with it and pray about it. Then we seek counsel on it and listen real hard to hear God call us. And we get frustrated because we do not hear it as clearly as Moses did with the burning bush thing. But the thing is, I think it is a lot easier than all that.
The Clarity of Our Call
In fact, I think He has pretty clearly outlined our calling in the bible. For the last few years I’ve had this conversation with people: lots of young adults, my kids, newly married couples, my middle-aged friends. After awhile I started to become more frustrated with how none of us realize how simple God has made it. So I decided to write a book about it. Well, the book is actually about how Jesus only gave us three specific commands and how one of them, I think, is the key to obeying the others. But, the undertone of the book deals with our calling as followers of Jesus. I’m hoping to have the book done by the end of August and ready for release by early spring 2018, but until then, I wanted to share this secret. Ready?
As Christians, we all have one calling. Yep, you read that correctly. We are all called to one singular thing and it is the same for all of us. Actually, to be fair, our calling is truly made up of a few different elements. Specifically it is made up of three commands and one commission. That is our calling, obedience to three commands and one commissioning. So what are they?
Three Commands and a Commission
I know this seems too easy to be true, but it really is not. I am confident that God was clear about two things: 1) how to get to Him (spoiler, Jesus) and 2) what we are supposed to do after we confess Jesus, so others can get to Him. Number two is our calling. It is THE thing that God is calling us all into. We, as Christians, all share in the exact same call of Christ. Here they are:
He commands us to:
Love God – Matthew 22:37
Love Our Neighbor – Matthew 22:39
Love Other Christians – John 13:3
He commissions us to:
Be my Witness and Make Disciples – Matthew 28:19 & Acts 1:8
Jesus was pretty clear at the end of Matthew 22, after he acknowledged the two most important commands. In verse 40 He said, “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” He was saying that our obedience to everything in the Old Testament depends on our understanding of and obedience to these two commands. Then He gave His followers the new command to love each other. I think there is a lot in that, but you will need to get the book to read my thoughts on that. In the big picture those commands are not always easy to follow, but I think they are pretty simple to understand.
After identifying the commands that we ought to be obeying, He commissioned us to be His witnesses to an unbelieving world and teach others to obey those commands. That’s our calling. Simple, right? I know some of you are saying, “But, I know my calling is to youth ministry.” So let’s talk about that.
Really it can be any call, youth, any other vocational pastorate, para-church ministry, or even Taco Bell. I am not suggesting that God is not calling you to any of those things; there is a high likelihood you are, again I am not arguing that. But, the context & setting in which we do “ministry” is inconsequential if we do not accept loving & going as our call. More and more, I am certain that when you understand and accept that this is what God is calling us to, He will direct that call toward a specific group or cause. Chances are you probably already care about the thing you feel “called” to; you just need to align it with what God has already commanded and commissioned us to do.
My hope is that this frees someone who feels like they are not doing something “impactful” for the Kingdom. Here is the truth, the most important thing you can do for God, and other people, is whatever you are doing for them right now, as long as it is done with a lovingness that introduces people to Jesus. If you are not doing anything right now, just pick something. What you do and where you do it is often of little concern. So, just do something that puts the love of Jesus on display for others to see and feel. That is your call.
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