The Lord commands us to love Him with all of our heart, mind, and strength. In other words, with everything we have. To many people this command doesn’t sound reasonable, or it can seem a bit excessive. However, when you consider that YAHWEH is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, can you really love life too much?… or can you really love the path of life too much?… or can you really love the knowledge of life too much? Also, Christ said a little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little deviation can cause you to miss the whole target over time. This brings to mind the 1 in 60 rule that pilots use. The 1 in 60 rule reminds pilots of the importance of verifying and correcting their course frequently. The basis of the rule is that if the pilot deviates from the set course 1 degree for a distance of 60 miles, that it will have the cumulative effect of them missing their mark by 1 mile. So, if they wait until they have traveled 600 miles to verify and correct the course as needed, they could end up a full 10 miles off course and that’s a long way from the targeted landing strip when it is time to land the plane.
So, with all that said, does endeavoring to perfect your focus on GOD seem excessive. When you take the 1 in 60 concept and apply it to the course of your whole life, frequently validating that you are traveling the right path becomes dramatically more important. Orienting your greatest affection towards GOD ensures that your heading is always fixed on true north. Christ teaches that we must take up our cross daily in order to follow Him. He gives us that command as a Good Shepherd, to ensure that no one in His flock gets lost. Taking up the cross is the practice of denying the influences of this present world and the appetites of the flesh in order to navigate by the will of the Spirit. To live after the will of the Spirit, the affections of our heart have to shift from the carnal to the spiritual, from the temporal to the eternal, from being self-centered to being centered on the will of the Creator. This new focus on heavenly things instead of earthly things comes from having the mind renewed through the liberation that comes from the knowledge of the Truth. Truth as in divine reality versus lies, fantasies, and all other things conjured from the imagination. Truth reveals that the Word of GOD is the only path to true fulfillment, peace, and joy. When you truly embrace that revelation, it produces a change of heart.
Our heart is at the center of our navigation system. We will be drawn to and seek what we love and value the most, which is why throughout the ages YAHWEH has shined His loving truth from heaven to win our hearts. In the book of Matthew, Christ is recorded teaching that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. He follows by stating no one can serve two masters, either they will hate the one and love the other, or they will be devoted to the one and despise the other. If you are not fully committed to any particular direction, how can you arrive at a specified destination, especially one that has a straight and narrow route.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? 6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” 7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:8)
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. (James 1:8)
To put any priority before GOD or to lift anything above GOD is insane. Those are strong words, but they are needed to avoid dire consequences. Loving GOD with all of our heart, mind, and strength is the sign of a sober mind. The commandment was given to help us order our lives in a sustainable way. In fact, you can’t live any other way. Don’t think for a minute that just because someone is walking around laughing and eating and buying and selling, that they are living the life they were meant to live. Animals of the land and sea are alive, but their living is not the life of a man. GOD created man in His image, and I tell you there are millions of people living today that aren’t living the life of a child of GOD.
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.” (Romans 8:14)
The children of GOD were meant to live by the principles of Love from the divine nature of the Spirit. Instead, most people live by their carnal instinct under the influence of a perverted and degraded mind.
59 Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:59-60)
Christ is not teaching that we should not lay our loved ones to rest but instead He is teaching that the affections of this world will always compete against the will of the Spirit, and you must have your heart set to honor GOD above all else. When YESHUA gave this man the command to follow after Him, He was well aware of every circumstance of his life and at that moment He gave the best instructions for him to follow. To follow GOD is to trust Him beyond our reasoning and understanding. It is to live by faith in His love, understanding that His commands are an expression of His guiding love. Setting our affections for people above our affections for GOD is to not understand that any virtue we are to bring to a relationship will first come from our relationship to the one who is Love. GOD is the source of the strength we need to meet the mandates of healthy relationships. Having confidence that you can love without first being submitted to the one who is Love is the evidence of that degraded mind I mentioned earlier.
The process of rejuvenation and restoration of the heart, mind, and spirit begins with being reconciled to GOD as the love of our lives. He is our first true love. All the real love we have ever received from others were but beacons lit by GOD to lead us to Him. By making GOD the love of your life you are set on the course of fulfillment, and you become a beacon for others to find the source of true love and the life they were meant to live.
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