The Greatest Commandment is to Love God....

with all your heart, soul, and strength (Matthew 22:37-38).

   This was the basis of the children's message today at church. I would like to share the insight that I received from focusing on this and the Deuteronomy 6 scripture.

   Our scripture reading today had this verse and I thought it was interesting to think about. How do we love God with our heart, soul, and strength? What are some examples that you do? Is it easy to do? Do you do it every day? Hmmm…lets dig deeper into this verse.Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Did you know that our fist is the same size as our heart? Our heart sometimes stands for what emotion? What is an emotion? That’s right! Our heart is the center of our emotions, thoughts, and words. 

   

   The Bible says to guard our heart for it is the wellspring of life, that’s a fancy way of saying keep our heart covered from bad things because it’s the cause of our actions. How can we love God through our emotions, actions, and thoughts? An example is if we get angry and make a fist, let’s remember that our fist is the same size as our heart and that our heart equals love. So when we get angry, how can we show love? When we are sad how can we show love? When we are happy how can we show love?

   The next part of our verse is “Love the Lord your God with all your soul”. I think soul means everything we are and how we interact with God. When we look at this math problem, is it easy to understand? Just like God is complex, that’s a fancy word for saying hard to understand, sometimes, so is this math problem. By reading about math, practicing math problems, and learning from a wise teacher we will someday fully understand how to solve this problem. Same as if we read the Bible, practice showing love, and learn from older kids and adults about God and Jesus we will someday fully understand him.  Learning about God is a way to love Him; it shows that we care about Him because we will spend time getting to know Him, we are interested in Him.

    The last part of this verse is “Love the Lord your God with all your strength” or might in some versions. Can anyone lift this weight? Well it says in Philippians that I can do all things through Christ who STRENGTHENS me. Jesus is the one who gives us strength, not ourselves. Our bodies are on loan from Christ and by using what God has given us wisely is a great way to show God we love Him. What are some things God gives us besides our strength?  How can we use them wisely? (examples eg. God gives us toys through our parents or friends, we can use them wisely by sharing them with our brother). 

This week let’s remember to show God how much we love Him. We can tell Him through prayer, show Him through our kind actions to others, or ask our parents more about what God is like.