Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

1 Corinicles 29:18

“O Lord, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep this desire in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal.

Loyalty can be described as to be firm, established, be steadfast, be faithful, be sure, be reliable, be fixed, be certain, be ready, to be totally taken by, without question, dedicated daily to, with all your heat, be committed.  With all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

Let’s think through this though.  When are you loyal?  Would you renounce your loyalty if…

1. Evil threatened your well being?
2. Evil threatened the well-being of your family?
3. Evil threatened the well-being of your unsaved family?
4. The person driving in front of you was driving too slowly?
5. Your neighbors’ dog barked all night long?
6. Your boss expected unreasonable performance from you?
7. Your friends include you in an evening out with alcohol involved?
8. Your children misbehave in the grocery store?
9. Your child misses curfew?
10. Your husband didn’t appreciate the special dinner you made for him?

I think sometimes it is easier for us to imagine this question in the context of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and say I know I wouldn’t renounce my faith.  My heart is loyal to you Lord.  Or, to imagine ourselves in the end times refusing the mark or standing in the line at the guillotine saying out loud I love you Lord even if our heads would be removed.  Then, death would be the only consequence.  We can die.  We love the Lord and we know that Christ has saved us from that consequence.  But, what about the other circumstances, do we really lose our “heart loyalty” every time we lose our temper?  When we lose patience with someone are we losing our loyalty?  When we aren’t kind or don’t make wise choices or don’t make peace the proper way, are we really holding up our end of the loyalty agreement that we made with God? 

Mark 12: 30. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

I think of this verse in a relationship sense.  Let me explain, when we first meet someone and start a relationship, either in a romantic relationship or a friendship, we say we “love them with all our heart”.  (“She is such a sweetheart, I just love her!”)They fill up that void, we are excited to see them.  We want to spend time with them.  We talk to them on the phone for hours.  But we are still getting to know them.

After awhile, we love them with all of our soul.  We often say, “we are soul mates” we think alike, we act alike, at times we even talk alike.  We discover the good in them and their strengths and we like to think that we have likenesses with them.

When we are long in our relationship, we tire of hearing the same conversations, we become more comfortable with the person and would maybe say, I’m to busy to  talk right now.  You KNOW that you love them, but you don’t “feel” in love so much anymore.  It is a conscious decision to love them, not just a sweeping feeling.

Once we’re married for a period, we realize that sometimes we have to love someone with all of our strength.  We don’t feel that sweeping love, in fact…  we could reason out in our heads that in fact we never really even felt “real” love at all.  But, in our commitment to God, to our spouse, to our children we find that we can pull through this rough spot if we remember to love them with “all of our strength”.

That’s how God wants us to love him.  Through it all, through the beginning of becoming a Christian, when all you want to do is have quiet time and read the Bible.  Through the “honeymoon” period where we do everything we can to be just like Jesus and do everything right.  Through the comfortable period when the freshness tires and we grow through knowledge and even when it gets hard and the only way to hang on to God’s love is with all of our strength. 

It is sometimes easier to hang on with all of your strength, when you are being threatened or tested.  Like you hold on to your child’s hand in a parking lot, but once we’re in a safer place or a more comfortable place, our grip loosens a bit.  We sometimes forget or get lazy about using all our mind and all our strength. 

When you are in a situation when you are relaxed (like your home in the evening) remember with all your mind, with all your strength.  Don’t loose your loyalty and your faithfulness and your firmness and your determination to do right.  Be prepared.  Be ready.  Use ALL YOUR MIND and ALL YOUR STRENGTH to be loyal to Christ and the life He would have us lead.  Your family will notice.  And they will be thankful.