📖Scripture:
“Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘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 mind and with all your strength.” - Mark 12:29-30
🔎Examination:
This is not the greatest suggestion. It is the greatest commandment. King Jesus is not inviting us into a vague religious sentiment; He is commanding first: LISTEN! Then, upon listening, the call to total, exclusive, all-consuming love for the LORD our God. Heart, soul, mind, strength — nothing is left outside the scope of adoration in worship via Spirit and Truth.
The sermon exposed what our flesh constantly tries to hide: we want to listen selectively and twist God's design so that worship orbits around us: our moods, our hurts, our preferences, our schedules, our politics, our comfort. We drag emotional baggage into the gathered assembly and then quietly expect God to adapt Himself to our temperature. We want Him to receive whatever we toss His way and be “pleased” with the leftovers. That was Cain’s posture — bring something, anything, and assume God will be honored because effort was expended.
But the God of Scripture does not accept half-hearted and self-centered offerings from deaf idolaters (see Proverbs 28:9). He is not a cosmic parent who pins our trash on Heaven’s fridge because we “tried.” The LORD rejected Cain’s sacrifice because it did not flow from faith, reverence, and obedience; it flowed from self-will. That same self-will still dresses up in church clothes, sings the songs, and nods at the sermon while refusing to surrender the throne of the heart.
This commandment exposes that throne. “All your heart” confronts our moral choices and deepest affections. What we daydream about, what we fear losing, what we secretly cherish — those are not neutral. They reveal whether God is supreme or merely useful. “All your soul” confronts identity. Are we functionally living as autonomous individuals who occasionally consult God, or as those crucified with Christ, whose lives are hidden with Christ in God? “All your mind” confronts our thinking. Are our reasoning, logic, and creativity submitted to the inerrant WORD, or do we still reserve the right to sit in judgment over Scripture? “All your strength” confronts our time, energy, and resources. Do our calendars, wallets, and physical efforts say, “It’s not about me,” or “It's ALL about me”?
WORSHIP is not synergistic or syncretistic self-improvement. The Greatest Commandment crushes self-reliance precisely so that resurrection union becomes our only hope. The Father does not lower His standard to match our lukewarmness; He raises us to His standard by uniting us to His Son. Christ Jesus, the eternal Son, is the only One who ever loved the heavenly Father with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength — and through the new birth, His obedience becomes the root of our new identity.
So the issue is not, “Can I generate this love?” The issue is, “Have I been born again, united to the One who already fulfilled this commandment?” From that union, the Holy Spirit produces hunger and craving for the WORD, hatred of sin, and a growing refusal to offer God participation-trophy worship. We do not love in order to be accepted; we love because we have been accepted in the Beloved. Regeneration → union → identity → obedience.
When this sinks in, worship stops being about entertainment and therapy. It becomes a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1): our whole being placed on the altar, not as a dead religious performance, but as a joyful response to the Lamb who gave Himself entirely for us. Anything less is not “struggling” worship; it is rebellion masquerading as sincerity.
🤺Action:
Test your affections (Ps 139:23–24): What competes with listening to the LORD's truth from the WORD, and loving God with all your heart? Confess it as an idol, not an inconvenience.
Examine your ways (Lam 3:40): Does your weekly rhythm reveal that your LOVE for God and His commands... or your personal preferences set the agenda for worship?
Weigh your path (Ps 119:59): Where have you been offering Cain-like leftovers instead of Abel-like, joyful, and costly obedience?
Judge yourself rightly (1 Cor 11:28–31): Are you expecting God to applaud what He calls lukewarm and abominable?
🧠Reflection:
This GREATEST commandment is not meant to crush you into despair; it is meant to crush our illusion of self-sufficiency. The Father is not asking us to manufacture love; He is confronting every rival to His Son’s supremacy in our hearts. As we honestly confess idols and lies, the Holy Spirit is not standing back with folded arms. He exposes to heal, convicts to cleanse, wounds to bind up.
Make today NOT about trying harder but about listening and love, i.e., TOTAL SURRENDER. Acknowledge where you have made worship about you — your comfort, your style, your wounds — and consciously turn (repent) to the crucified and risen King who loved the Father perfectly in your place. Ask Him to align your heart, soul, mind, and strength with His. That is not emotional hype; that is the resurrection life manifest in ordinary saints who know: it really is not about us. It is all about Christ Jesus.
Click the following link for a short video version of today's post:
Blessings & love,
Kevin M. Kelley
Pastor
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