Greatest Commandment Helps Believers: Part 3

We are studying the first portion of “the greatest commandment.” One of the scribes… asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! Yehovah our God is one Lord; and you shall love Yehovah your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:27-30). This portion of the commandment contains four elements with which we are to love God.

The heart refers to our emotions, the mind to our intellect, the soul to our eternal moral being and human psychological character and strength to our physical condition. We are not to give any portion of these aspects of our life to anyone or anything else. In obeying this commandment, we honor God and we benefit ourselves. They represent the four pillars by which we live the Christian life.

Satan attacks God’s people in each of these areas of life. When we are attacked in one area, we use another see us through the trial or temptation. We looked at specific examples of God strengthening His people in each area when the faced trials and temptations. God has also promised to strengthen us in each of these areas to prepare us for trials when they come.

HEART and SOUL: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you,” (Hebrews 13:9). God replaces what cannot be repaired. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God” (1 Corinthians 2:12)

MIND: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8). Paul asserts the through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives “we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16)

STRENGTH: Through the prophet Isaiah Yehovah told His people, “Do not fear, for I am with you; …I will strengthen you, surely I will help you” (Isaiah 41:10) and “those who wait for Yehovah will gain new strength” (Isaiah 40:31). Our new strength may be internal, “though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Our loving God responds to those who love Him with all of their heart, mind, soul and strength. He responds by equipping them in each of these aspects of their lives to face the challenges of life and prepare to live with Him eternally.