Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 14,15,16; Mark 12:23-44
“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 mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.” – Mark 12:30(KJV)
Our love for God must be predicated on and manifest in these four dimensions, namely:- Thy Heart, thy soul, thy mind and thy Strength. These four dimensions are operational in the three realms of Spirit, Soul and Body. In other words, what the above scriptural verse is saying is that we should love God with our spirit, soul and body. Man is a spirit being with a soul dwelling in the body. Loving God in our spirit entails having our inner being completely possessed by the Spirit of God and Word of God. The source of nutrient for the body is the physical food we eat daily, while the food of the spirit is the word of God. To love God with our spirit connotes feeding our spirit daily with the word of God and being possessed by the Spirit of God. The more of the word of God that enters our spirit being the more space we concede to the Holy Spirit. So when we are saturated by God’s word our spirit man is completely engulfed by God’s Spirit. It is the spirit that quickens, so when we are vibrant in the spirit with the word of God it transmits through our soul to the body life. John 6:63(KJV), “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life”.
Loving God requires a total submission to His will. This involve having our soul renewed by the word of God. When our soul, which is our intellectual and memory bank, is daily encountering the word of God and basking in it, it begins to emit divine virtues. This is what apostle Paul, the beloved, meant in Romans 12:2 (KJV) “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” This is further stated by Apostle Peter in 2Peter 1:4 (KJV), “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” When our mind is renewed by God’s word and the Holy Spirit we are moved from a corrupt state to a new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24).
The soul of man is the war room between the spirit and the flesh. It is the transmitter of messages between the spirit and the body. It requires it to be subjected and submit to God for us to be said to love God. The process of subjecting and submitting is by the entrance of the word. Psalm 119:130 (KJV), “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” The scripture says in Matthew 26:41 (KJV), “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The flesh is the human body we carry. The flesh has a strong craving for sin and worldly pleasure and must be brought to subjection by our living in line with the word of God and the dictates of the Holy Spirit. For us to be said to love God our flesh must be in one hundred percent submission to God’s will. The flesh will stand in resistant but we must consciously determine with the help of the Holy Spirit and continuous injection of the word of God to bring it to submission.
Prayer: Father, I totally surrender my whole being to you and your word.
Bro. Joel Ezeugo