40 Days of Love – Day 4
Monday I began reading The Relationship Principles of Jesus right along with the rest of our church, as part of our 40 Days of Love.
(quotes I include are from the book, unless otherwise noted)
Love God with All Your Soul.
I always kind of thought that heart and soul were the same thing. Apparently not. There is a distinction between the two in scripture, even if not in our every day English vernacular.
“The Old Testament uses the Hebrew word nephesh, which means “to breathe”. Behind this word is the idea that God breathes life into us. You’re a living soul… The New Testament uses the Greek work psychē,… It has to do with your will, your drive, the passion of your life, the power by which you live. Put these Old and New Testament words together, and you get a fairly good idea of what the soul is. Your soul is your desires and passions. Your soul is your God-given personality… Your soul is the passion with which you’re living, the personality you’ve been given, the path your life is taking, the power in your being.”
This is SO striking for me. This is right where I’m at. It even goes to the very heart of this blog, “It’s OK to be WEIRD!” and my feeling that we all need to find out the essence of who we are as individuals, each created uniquely by God. Until we live in the fullness of our unique creation, we can not truly live fully. Oh YES! This idea of soul answers that for me, and confirms what my own soul has been feeling.
- To Love God with All Your Soul, Seek Him Passionately.
“Most of us sense in our gut that having some kind of relationship with God must be part of what makes up a healthy soul. Because our soul is the expression of our life passion, a relationally healthy soul will passionately seek to express love for God.
” Jesus told many stories about this kind of passion, this kind of thirst, in our lives. Many of these stories about the passion with which we seek God and his kingdom had to do with finding something that was lost.
” You’ve had the experience of losing something that was important to you…. You turned the house upside down to find it. ‘I must find it! I won’t stop until I find it.’ That’s passion. That’s the way to seek God. Seek him passionately – with all your soul.“
Do I seek God with this kind of passion? Do I look more earnestly for that $5 I misplaced, or one of the kiddos lost shoes, than I do for the Lord’s work in my life? When we’re walking out the door, a minute or two later than we ought to have been because of one thing or another, and that one shoe is missing, it’s the most urgent thing in the world at that moment. We haven’t any time to lose, and we must find the shoe 10 minutes ago! The Lord of the universe is waiting for us to seek after him, and in light of eternity, we haven’t any time to lose. I should be seeking after God with more passion, with all of my soul.
- To Love God with All Your Soul, Love Him Personally.
“You are like nothing else and no one else. You’re the only one in all of creation who can love the Lord like you can. … When you love the Lord, you love him in a unique voice – a voice different in tone, different in soul, from any other voice God hears in all of creation. Love God uniquely with the personality he’s fashioned into your life.”
“… If you really love him with your God-given personality, the way you express your love will be a bit different from everybody else. Not strange – different. It’s going to be wonderfully different.”
Of course, I LOVE this!!! My relationship with the Lord will look different than your relationship with the Lord, simply because you and I are different. If I am trying to make my walk with him look like yours, he can see right through that. He sees my imitation, and he longs for the genuine article. I relate to everything around me based on my own ‘bent’, and it is no different with the Lord. I’m so excited that we are free to worship and love him in our own unique ways, and in fact, that we were created to do just that. We can be unique, not just for the sake of being different, and within the bounds of what is appropriate to him, because we ARE unique. Isn’t that cool?
- To Love God with all Your Soul, Decide to Do What He Wants You to Do.
“How do you set your soul to make such a radical decision? Jesus shows the way. You se the direction of your soul by talking to God. The power to follow Jesus’ example is found in being able to pray the prayer that Jesus prayed: ‘ Not my will, Lord, but yours be done.'”
“If you’ve been a believer for any length of time, you’ve discovered that it can easily become your habit to try to love God with part but not all of your soul…. This week, stamp all of your life with the prayer, ‘Not my will, Lord, but yours be done.’ Even if you feel, ‘I don’t know if I can honestly pray this prayer for every area,’ go ahead and begin with the prayer, ‘God, I want your will, but I want my will also. I know it’s wrong, but it’s how I feel. So I ask you to work in my heart to get me to the place where I can pray, “Not my will, but your will be done.” I want to learn to love you with all my soul.'”
Someone once said that it’s OK to pray, “Lord, I’m willing to be made willing to follow you in this area, even if I’m not there right now.” I often think of that phrase, and find it helpful when I’m having a particularly difficult time with WANTING to make the right change. “Lord, I’m willing to be made willing…”
Day Four Application:
Thinking about My Relationships –
Point to Ponder: When you love the Lord, you love him with a unique voice – a voice that is different in soul from any other voice God hears in all of creation.
Verse to Remember: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6).
Question to Consider: Where do I need to pray, “Lord, your will be done, ” in order to love God with all my soul?
I’ve been thinking about this all morning. First I was so excited about the WHOLE of today’s lesson – it is SO up my alley! I’ll keep thinking about this today, because right now I can not think of an area that I need to pray specifically about. I do not separate every day life from spiritual life… it all goes together. So when I say, “Lord, your will be done in my life” I really do mean in my WHOLE life. Are there areas I have kept from him? I will be seeking the answer to that question. I would like to think that there aren’t any areas I have kept from him, but in my humanness I know there must be.
Father, I am willing to be made willing, in whatever areas of my life where my will is not aligned with yours. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
