We, as Christ followers, aren’t so good at loving God fully and completely. If we aren’t so good at it, then the collective of Christ followers must suffer from the same flaw. Did you know that loving God completely is actually part of our nature? God created us that way, and until a piece of fruit and a slithering tempter altered the path of history, that’s the way it was. God created human beings different from other beings. Humans are created in the image of God and are able to think and make choices. Inside this creation was the longing to be tied to God. Outside of it was the sense that…

…humans could be more without being tied to God. The choice was total dependence on God, allowing Him to give direction and set the standards or setting a direction and standards for oneself. God offered to be Adam and Eve’s provider of knowledge. Tied to Him, there would be direction based on God’s infinite knowledge. That was true paradise. That is how God created us to be, totally loving Him and trusting Him with every part of our being, but we don’t always believe God is enough. In Genesis 3, the serpent was able to tempt Eve by telling her that if she ate the fruit, she would be like God, knowing good and evil. We are told that, “when the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it” (Verse 6).

The conflict that gave birth to..

…choosing our knowledge over God’s will always be a part of us. We can still choose to tie ourselves to God, loving Him and trusting Him, fully relying on Him for everything. We can still choose to rely on ourselves and our own knowledge to guide us. We long for the first and are tempted by the second, leading us to combine them both. When God was totally in control, He determined the direction, leading Adam and Eve the only way a Holy God can: the way of good. Once good and evil became known and sin entered the world, it was no longer a two-option choice, trust and love God or trust yourself. Now a combination of the two governs our lives and churches.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart is about …

…loving God with the part of you that contains your faith/belief system. Our beliefs are, for the most part, founded on the biblical truth of a loving, caring, active God. It is our feelings and our thoughts that can negatively influence these beliefs. Our soul (who we are) is easily overwhelmed by feelings of fear. We long for God on one hand while we fear He will fail us on the other. Feelings of fear lead to doubt, and doubt leads to changes in our beliefs. Even if we gain control of our feelings of fear, our minds, the most difficult part to love God with, can also cause us to doubt. Our thought process is easily derailed by input from the world around us. What appears to be common sense or a logical way of thinking is good to employ in situations that present the tangible, but God is not tangible. Our minds have difficulty focusing on and accepting the unseen, the hard to comprehend.

God, the footing of our lives, is not…

…the answer to a math question. He is not a provable scientific fact reproducible in a laboratory experiment. His thoughts are so different from ours. Our perception is limited by time and our understanding of the boundaries of our physical world. His actions are founded on His complete knowledge of what has, is, and will happen, and how He is working them together. His power is not restricted by the laws of the universe He created. There is no way we can use our minds in the way He uses His. If our lives are based on the belief He exists but we live in the fear that He will not act because our minds cannot fathom how He will work this out, we are not fully tied into the footings (God) because we do not love Him with all we are.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)

Over the next few months I will be preaching a sermon series using my book Blueprint as a jumping off point. My posts will contain small sections from my book and a link to my sermon.