Posted on Jul 11, 2008
What does it mean to love God with all your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength?
And how do those four things apply in Loving your neighbor as yourself?
If love is something you constantly DO, then loving your neighbor would require all your strength. If your mind is being renewed, it ought to be wholly consumed. But how do you love God with all your Heart and Soul? I suppose most devout folk would say "Spiritual disciplines, you sinner!"...but how does the Heart and Soul ACT in love?
If love truly is so much more than a feeling, how does the Heart and Soul...ACT in love?
We can easily associate action with our strength, and even so with our mind, our words and thoughts are more or less the actions of our minds. I guess when I say:
"How do you love with your Heart and Soul"
I mean
"What can your Heart and Soul do to demonstrate love?"
Maybe I am misunderstanding this...(which maybe is a product of my history of not loving God with all my mind) but my understanding of the Soul is our Essence, our existence...in a non-blasphemous way (i.e. I'm not saying I=God) how does my own I am be love?
In the same way, my understanding of the Heart is not just the thing that goes thump-thump whenever she walks by, but rather the "gut feeling", the place where you hold to the things that you know that you know that you know. How does something like that DO love?
Before I begin to digress, I look at Jesus. I think it's plain to see how he loved God with all his Mind (by keeping God's commands readily in his Mind and speaking God's words (Love) to transform others) and how he loved God with all his Strength (by becoming a healer to the sick, a meal-giver for the hungry, by getting water for the thirsty)...what of his Heart and Soul? Some would say constant prayer is his Soul's Love, but I have to believe there is something more...
If you made it to the end...high five.
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