Ashley and I have been spending some time listening to messages via the web from people like Mark Driscoll, Francis Chan and Mike Bickle. All of them have been challenging and enlightening in their own way but there was one in particular that stood out the other evening.
Mike Bickle was talking about the First Commandment. It was part of a series from the Passion for Jesus 2010 conference at IHOP. (Here’s the link to the video). In this message titled “Loving God: The First Commandment Restored to First Place”, Mike challenges us, bluntly, to take the first commandment at face value.
Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
Those are the words that make up the commandment; quite familiar and well-traveled. They may well have lost their weight in your life as they did in mine. The phrase had become so familiar that I would often skip on to something that seemed more interesting or more important. I would look for something that I could commit to that somehow, in my weird world, would be more engaging than this commandment. Boy did I miss out!
If we could somehow wrap our minds around this commandment and start to live according to it, I argue that our lives would be drastically changed. As Ash and I move to Northampton, this was a timely reminder for us. If nothing else, love God with intentionality in every aspect of our life.
Success, according to Mike (and I happen to agree with him) is only measured by whether or not we love God to our fullest potential. The dream is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. The vision may change, the field may change, the size and breadth of our influence may change, our churches may turn to rubble, but if our dream is purely to love God in and with everything we are, we will not be “unsuccessful”.
Intentionally loving God moves his heart more than intentionally loving ideas to grow our ministry, build our publicity or maximise kingdom impact. He can do all of that. He wants our heart. If we could get that down then I really think the church would take one more step towards getting some color back in her cheeks.
Check out the video linked to above. It’s a great reminder and I hope that it can be a refreshing challenge to you. Enjoy.
