Mark 12.30-31 commands, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.

How can we practically love God?

Loving God with all of our heart is loving God emotionally. It is difficult to manufacture feelings but we can foster their development. Worship of God helps us feel God’s presence. Worship often occurs through song, prayer or contemplation. In addition, good feelings are generated when we help and give to others for God’s glory.

Loving God with our mind means increasing our understanding of Him and His ways so that we can obey them. Loving God with my mind is developed through Bible reading and study. It is also fostered through the meditation of the Scriptures as I contemplate His character and His ways and their implication to my life.

Loving God with all my soul is the development of my will toward obedience to God. This is the battleground area between what I feel and what I think. My soul’s love for God is increased every time I obey Him.

This is especially true when my feelings are fighting against me but my mind reminds me of God’s Word and His will for my life. Doing God’s will when I don’t want to eventually causes my feelings to come around as well because obedience always leads to joy.

Finally, loving God with all my strength is the physical doing of God’s will. I can think about what I should do, I can feel like I should do something, I can know what I am to do but until I do it I am only fantasizing.

My body is His vehicle for accomplishing the will of God whether it is giving, serving or sharing. I am to use the gifts and talents He created me with for His purposes in the world.

The beneficiary of my obedience to God is my neighbor.

I express my obedience to God when I love my neighbor, when I serve my neighbor and when I treat my neighbor as I wish to be treated.