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How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 7:41:03 PM
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4IMPersuaded
Posts: 409
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From: Florence, KY
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I was reading this past week (actually several times in the last weeks) our Lord's most important commandment-- to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.
I can think of real, tangible ways to love Him with all of my heart, mind and strength, but how can I love Him with all of my soul?
I'd love to hear what you think.
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 7:54:06 PM
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pstrdebi
Posts: 739
Joined: 4/28/2008
From: So. Oregon, by way of So. Cal.
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quote:
ORIGINAL: 4IMPersuaded
I was reading this past week (actually several times in the last weeks) our Lord's most important commandment-- to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.
I can think of real, tangible ways to love Him with all of my heart, mind and strength, but how can I love Him with all of my soul?
I'd love to hear what you think.
The soul is our depth... our essence... our core. It is a level of love that is only real and personable to each individual. To me... it is my depth... calling unto God's.
_____________________________
"For in Him we live and move and have our being..." Acts 17:28a
http://www.therockfellowship.org
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 8:56:41 PM
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sparkleingsnow
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To me, it is my entermost being. It is me. It's the spirit within me.
To love Him with my soul, is to love Him with all that I am. My heart, my mind, my strength. To spend time with Him. Talk to Him. Study His word. See His handiwork all around me. To talk about Him. To give of myself to Him, and His work, ie time, money, engery.
As I draw close to Him my love for Him grows by His grace. When I take my eyes off of Him that love dims a little. In short I would say to keep close to Him
_____________________________
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is
within me, bless his holy name.
Psalm 103:1
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 8:57:10 PM
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mvic
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It's a really difficult question. How does one differentiate between one's mind and one's soul? Where does one start and the other end?
In fact, on re-reading the quote; how do you differentiate between heart, soul, mind and strength?
I believe what Jesus was saying is love God above all else, totally, without any hint of hesitation.
_____________________________
Visit http://www.holyvisions.co.uk
My Book My Blog
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 9:39:32 PM
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drmark
Posts: 3140
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quote:
I believe what Jesus was saying is love God above all else, totally, without any hint of hesitation. Amen, mvic! Many commentaries point out that Jesus was referring to Deut 6:5 as translated in the Greek Septuagint Bible. By combining all four terms in Mark 12:30, He was obviously characterizing our entire being. God is Lord of our all or He is not Lord at all!
_____________________________
Jeremiah 31:31-34. The time is NOW, fellow saints!
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 9:42:31 PM
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LCannon
Posts: 1255
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From: Lebanon, OR
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The soul is one's personality, talents and potential. All people have a body and soul. The spirit comes alive when we appropriate His obedience, sacrifice and His Victory. In that context, an obedient spirit comes in flashes of conscience and worship and out of service that we inherit.
_____________________________
"It may be that when the angels go about their task of praising God they play
only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille they
play Mozart and then too our dear Lord listens with special pleasure."(Karl Barth)
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 10:09:50 PM
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LawrenceJCaldwell
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Outstanding delivery. Take the point a little deeper and consider just how does one do this? Here are some other all or nothing examples:
Pray without ceasing. I Thessalonians 5:17
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Mark 14:32
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Romans 11:36
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. Revelation 13:3
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. Revelation 22:19
There is only one correct answer. It is not a trick question and drmark has already provided the answer. The question is, do you believe Him?
quote:
ORIGINAL: drmark
quote:
I believe what Jesus was saying is love God above all else, totally, without any hint of hesitation. Amen, mvic! Many commentaries point out that Jesus was referring to Deut 6:5 as translated in the Greek Septuagint Bible. By combining all four terms in Mark 12:30, He was obviously characterizing our entire being. God is Lord of our all or He is not Lord at all!
_____________________________
Lawrence J. Caldwell
Author & Speaker
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/23/2008 10:49:03 PM
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Giulia
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From: Giulia
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quote:
There is only one correct answer. It is not a trick question and drmark has already provided the answer. The question is, do you believe Him?
Yes and when you believe Him it will manifest in your life. In your communication and manners, in your habits and routine. Also in the courage you display to bring forth righteousness in unrighteous situations.
_____________________________
Rejected by the world but loved by heaven
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/24/2008 12:37:31 AM
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RJR_fan
Posts: 716
Joined: 4/12/2005
From: RTP, in sunny NC USA
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quote:
I can think of real, tangible ways to love Him with all of my heart, mind and strength, but how can I love Him with all of my soul?
This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
quote:
Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment
the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible
religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within.
Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows
any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work.
That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately
to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun
or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship
cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not
the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order
to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards,
but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm
a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being
a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light,
but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as
the moon, terrible as an army with banners.
Trying to take one's own spiritual temperature is a fool's errand, so don't ask me to recommend a thermometer equal to that task! When folks make the "change of state" transition from being excited about God to being excited about being excited, weirdness happens and demons frolic.
_____________________________
The future has never been shaped by majorities but rather by dedicated minorities. And free men do not wait for the future; they create it. RJR
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/24/2008 8:58:11 AM
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drmark
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quote:
This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Excellent quote, RJR! Just a reminder that the reference is 1 John 5:3. Another beautiful definition for loving God with all our soul is found in 1 John 3:16-18:
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
_____________________________
Jeremiah 31:31-34. The time is NOW, fellow saints!
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 8/25/2008 3:40:07 AM
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RJR_fan
Posts: 716
Joined: 4/12/2005
From: RTP, in sunny NC USA
Status: online
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quote:
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
IOW, love is something we do, not necessarily something we feel. Mother Teresa served God and man for nearly half a century without any particular desire to do so. She'd received a calling, and valiantly soldiered on whether she felt like it or not.
This is such a striking contrast to our ooey-gooey sloppy-agape American notion "if it feels good, do it," or "I'll do it if/when I feel led to." When Bill Clinton assembled evangelical ministers around him, it was for the purpose of stroking his wounded ego -- and they did not disappoint him. "Mr. President, you are not surrounded by alligators," Jack Hayford assured him. At a national prayer breakfast, in a striking contrast, this tiny Albanian nun confronted Clinton on the issue of abortion, displaying more godly testosterone than the "best" that America had to offer.
_____________________________
The future has never been shaped by majorities but rather by dedicated minorities. And free men do not wait for the future; they create it. RJR
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 9/5/2008 6:24:46 AM
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alfali
Posts: 4
Joined: 6/24/2008
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: 4IMPersuaded
I was reading this past week (actually several times in the last weeks) our Lord's most important commandment-- to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.
I can think of real, tangible ways to love Him with all of my heart, mind and strength, but how can I love Him with all of my soul?
I'd love to hear what you think.
Hi Who-is-persuaded,
Thanks for interesting topic, loving soul is exactly the question I had in the past and I also tried to find an answer in Scriptures. Here is my answer to your question:
First of all the Bible appeals to our soul as to the part of human being which has ability to love. Of course soul is not all what a human is, but only a part of him. Soul is integral part of our being - thus it depends on other parts and on the other hand it can enfluence and drive other parts of our being. Therefore I conclude that most important comandment requires us to have this soul's loving enfluence on our being and life. Loving with mind, heart and strength is not enough.
Secondly, Bible introduces the measure of love that our soul has, otherwise it would not say "with all soul". God requires that we in our loving do strive to reach the maximum of soul's potential. And even beyond this - to develop our soul's loving potential.
At third, when I tried to find examples of loving soul in the Bible I have detected two cases describing about very interesting process. Someone's soul is claving unto someone's else or one's soul is knit with someone else soul (Gen 34:3; 1Kings 18:1). To my understanding these passages show about some subconscious process resulting in some sort of depedancy of one from the other. We usually refer to it as to falling in love with someone. If look deeper, the main feature of this falling is in some kind of psycological inertia when your soul is driving you in some direction despite problems, opposition and rejections. May be Commandment refers to this feature of our soul?
But in this case how can someone manage his own soul's falling in love? Maybe he can somehow stop or prevent his soul from "wrong" falling, but how to lead the soul to "correct" falling?
Anyway, I believe the Commandment cannot be considered as a rule of living and behaviour, but rather as a goal for striving without any possibility to stop and say I am done.
My answer to the question is to cultivate your inner conscious and subconscious dependency from God, to have powerful psychological inertia driving you to Jesus overcoming everything.
Grace to everyone,
Alfali
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 9/5/2008 8:34:51 PM
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SonInMe1
Posts: 3397
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From: my mom by God
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I don't believe in this...soul business so I can't really relate.
We love God because He loved us first.
We love God because through salvation He enables us to be able to.
We love God because we know what was done for us, the alternative, and the wisdom of being saved and how that manifests itself in our lives and others.
We are made in God's image...we are three. We are Spirit, Mind, and body. The spirit is in control, the mind follows the spirit and the body follows the mind. If the spirit running your life is Jesus, that will control your thoughts ( mind ) and your thoughts govern your actions.
I think soul was invented by some song writer trying to sell more records..... 
_____________________________
You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
James 4:4
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RE: How do you love God with all your soul? - 9/6/2008 10:11:06 AM
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makarizo
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SonInMe1
We love God because through salvation He enables us to be able to.
amen to that!!!
and the song writer that you are referring to Is David....... Psalm 103 and 104 "Bless the Lord O my soul"
We must never forget that He is the source of every good and perfect thing.
_____________________________
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