Strength

This will be the last in this series on Loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and and strength. For the past three weeks we have been discussing what this verse means. The heart is the emotions....love the Lord with our emotions. Sometimes we have this concept that God is always serious. Scripture tells us that we have been made or fashioned in God's image. We laugh. We cry. We are silly sometimes. All of those are emotions and come straight from the Author of emotions that fashioned us in His own image. The soul is the center of our personality. Again, some of us are more serious and subdued than others. But whatever personality traits God has blessed an individual with can love Him. Our mind is obviously the center of thought. Our thoughts can absolutely glorify and magnify the King of kings.

Now we come to the last in the series....strength. The word strength is usually aligned with a physical aspect. When I am leading a group of children in worship and we do movements to the songs, I always hold up my arms to show my muscles (as little as they are) for the word strength. In fact this past weekend, I led a group of adults and children on the song by Lincoln Brewster that is based on this verse. When we got to the word strength, I did just that...raised my arms making my huge muscles pop up. But the word here in this verse means so much more than physical strength. Its definition means power and force.

The old Star Wars line that everyone used to quote is "may the force be with you." The definition here is not a person or army, but it means to strongly persuade. So how can we love the Lord with force? There is a line we hear quite frequently these days...using the "power of persuasion." It could be said the "power of force." Loving the Lord with power and force simply means to use our influence on whomever we come in contact with for the sake of the kingdom. Love the Lord by influencing people for Him. God can use us to make a difference in 2009 by loving the Lord through power and force. NOW, this doesn't mean to be confrontational. Influence has to be tempered with the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It can be said like this: we can use our influence to love people while leading them to the real joy and peace in life, while patiently praying and waiting for the Spirit to move, approaching every situation in kindness therefore watching God bring goodness, trusting Him in faith, while we gently go through life. This is all under self-control.

Like always...think about it.

Love you,

pb