February 1 - Deuteronomy 6:5

February 1 - Deuteronomy 6:5

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

These words are part of the Shema – “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (might).” Deut. 6:4-5

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

“Shema” is the Hebrew word for ‘hear’ which not only means for us to hear these words, but to obey and believe these words.  It is as if Moses is telling the people of Israel that unless they obey the words that they hear, they didn’t hear them at all.

The Israelites lived among people who believed in many gods – there was a god for everything.  They prayed to gods of fertility, gods that would protect their crops, bring rain, bring sunshine.  They prayed to gods that would protect them from invaders and others who would protect their steps as they walked through a day.  God had declared His sovereignty with the covenant He set up with Abraham, but in those years that they lived as slaves to the Pharoahs, they had lost that relationship with Him as their sole provider.

The very first commandment given to the Israelites was, “You shall have no other gods before me.” From that moment, God declared His demand that He be the One God they worshiped.  There was to be no other, they were His and His alone – He would be theirs and theirs alone.

This verse is just as important today as it was to the Israelites several thousand years ago.  God did something quite interesting in this verse.  He separated the ideas of how to love God to ensure that we wouldn’t be confused.  He didn’t stop simply by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God.”  He particularized the idea by stating that every portion of our being should love Him.

We’ve missed out on some of this today.  It’s too easy to say “I love God” and believe it in our heart, but then we live our lives as if we don’t.  We hide our heart from the rest of our existence.  Our daily work (strength / might) doesn’t show the world that we love God.  We curse, swear, gossip, cut people off, ignore those that annoy us, cut corners, tweak things a little here and there … anything at all to make ourselves look good.  We’ll do whatever it takes to get ahead.

We hide our heart from our lives.  The word used for soul in this verse is also the word for ‘being or life.’  While many times we speak about God and expect the world to know that our words portray our beliefs, our actions speak much louder.  We slander, we are greedy, we play power games, we waste time and energy on things with no meaning, we allow our hurts and anger to control our relationships.  There are so many ways that we hide our hearts from our lives.

The command from the Lord is that we tie all of these things together and love Him.  He is one God.  We are His children.  He wants us to bring a unified life filled with love for Him and present it at His altar. 

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (might).”