Psalm 31:17-24
...Praise be to the Lord, for he showed me the wonders of his love when I was in a city under siege. In my alarm I said, "I am cut off from your sight!" Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help. Love the Lord, all his faithful people! The Lord preserves those who are true to him, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
Verse 23 says: "Love the Lord, all his faithful people!" God has once again called us to love Him. When Jesus interpreted this commandment, He didn't say that the greatest command is the "serve the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength;" instead, He asked us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength." When we hear about loving the Lord, we often don't really know what it means. We might relate it to things like attending worship service weekly, tithing, participating in all kinds of ministry, etc. Is "loving the Lord" just these outward activities? Actually, loving the Lord is not shown on the outside, but rather from inside our soul. We must love the Lord our God with our heart and soul. That's why Jesus Christ said: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength."
What is loving God with all our heart? It's to always think about how to please God. When we come before God, we often want God to satisfy us, "Lord, please give me this and that, and please make way for me in hardship." If God doesn't answer us, we'd get mad at Him. Actually, when we come before God, we shouldn't seek our own pleasure, but we ought to seek to please God.
Not only with our heart, but we should also love God with all our soul, which means we ought to love God with our feeling, and we want to express to the Lord how much we love Him. Chinese people often conceal feeling of love inside and never express it, but we really ought to express our love to God, and often say that God "Lord, I love you!"
Not only with our heart and soul, but we should also love God with all our mind, which is our rationality. A person's love for God will not surpass His knowledge of God; therefore, we must learn more about God so that we can love Him more. Finally, we must love God with all our strength, use our time, money, energy and everything else that God has given us to repay Him. Let us spend all our life to love Him, serve Him and follow Him!
Pray with Pastor Tong
Lord, may you teach us and let us understand how to love you, so that we know how to love you with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength. Let us learn how to please you in our daily life. I thank you and I pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!
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