How to Love God With All Your Soulنموونە

Loving God with all your soul

In Greek and Hebrew thought, the soul served a similar purpose to how many see the heart today. The biblical view of the heart portrayed it more as the seat of decisions rather than of our passions and emotions, with the soul filling that latter role. As such, loving God with your soul involves personal devotion and spiritual growth, centering your life on your relationship with God.

Over the next six days, we’ll look at the ways in which we can better learn to love God by developing our personal walk with him. That effort, however, has to start with making sure we’ve recognized him as our king.

One of the primary impediments to loving God well is treating him as if he’s something less than the absolute, divine ruler of all creation. That’s not to minimize the equally true reality that he is also our heavenly Father. Nor is it meant to create a degree of separation between him and us. After all, Jesus died to make sure such a chasm would not exist and to enable us to enter into a personal, intimate relationship with the Lord.

However, we must never grow so comfortable with God that we take him for granted or lose sight of what an honor it is to have that kind of relationship. Unfortunately, relating to God as our king has become increasingly difficult in a culture that often treats him like a hobby.

In the West, we often separate the soul from the body, the spiritual from the secular, and leave God in our chapels and churches. Christianity is for church, religion is for Sunday, and that’s where its relevance stops.

And what is more tragic still is the degree to which his people have bought into that error as well.

You see, God can only lead those who are willing to follow, and he can only bless those who will receive his gifts. He has a good, pleasing, and perfect will for us, a plan to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV). But he can only do that when he is our king.

In biblical times, the image of a king was powerful and relevant. Today, it can be easy to think of it as either a ceremonial vestige from a bygone era or like the despotic tyrants who litter our history books. And while I think most Christians understand that God is neither, rightly rejecting those misconceptions should not include ignoring the concept of what it means for him to be our king altogether.

For better or worse, kings in the biblical era were typically charged with setting the direction for the culture within their realm. That’s why, throughout much of the Old Testament, we see God’s people prosper under rulers who are committed to him and fall to ruin when their leaders begin to stray. And God knew that would be the case. It’s why his original intent was to be Israel’s king and why Samuel was so reluctant to ordain a human to take God’s place (1 Samuel 8).

History shows that Samuel was right to be wary, yet something in fallen humanity bristles at the notion of a king we can’t see, of entrusting our guidance to God. That’s been the case since the Garden of Eden, and we’d be foolish to think it’s something we’ve moved beyond today. But just because we may not like the idea of being under a king’s reign does not lessen our need for one.

After all, the fact remains that most people want there to be a king . . . so long as it’s them.

Therein lies our problem, and one of the greatest impediments to loving the Lord well.

God does not cease to be our king when we try to live as though he’s not. As a result, any attempts to fill that role ourselves—or place another person atop that throne—lead to a civil war in our souls. When we fight against the notion of allowing God to be the absolute ruler of our lives and to set the direction for every facet of our being, then we are fighting against the very nature of what he’s trying to accomplish in our lives.

That’s why we have to make the conscious decision to make God our king every day. Jesus called it taking up your cross, and he promised that “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

To worship God with all our souls, we have to let go of the desire for control that would make petty tyrants of us all and, instead, surrender that throne back to God, our perfect and holy King.

So, as we conclude for today, ask God to help you identify any areas of your life where you are attempting to keep his throne for yourself. Then surrender those areas back to the Lord and be ready to do so again tomorrow.