Love Him wholeheartedly

North Texas Catholic
(Oct 21, 2024) Faith-Inspiration

A cantor prays during the Red Mass for elected officials and legal professionals on Sept. 26, 2024 at St. Patrick Cathedral. (NTC/Juan Guajardo)

I’ve met so many people over the years who have a conversion to Jesus, honestly want to follow Him and live out the plans He has set for them, but have no idea what to do or how to do it.

We can very easily go into doing all the things for Jesus, but completely miss the fact that the Lord simply desires our heart. He wants us.

I think back to the question posed to Jesus: what is the greatest commandment?

“The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:29-31).

Loving the Lord is the highest goal in life, everything else is secondary. It is Jesus alone that will satisfy the desires of our hearts. It is Him alone that will quench the thirst our soul feels.

I want to explain how to love the Lord more with your heart, mind, and strength.

The modern understanding of the heart is equated to feeling, emotion, or desire. Love is considered a feeling, and if you don’t feel joy about something in particular, it’s okay to just take it out of your life. Our heart can be boiled down to an emotional response.

The biblical understanding of the heart is a place where our fundamental choice is made. “Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23). This kind of love means it’s a decision.

To love God with your heart means it’s a personal, committed decision. It’s a personal decision you alone must make (your parents or your friends can’t make it for you). Loving God means it’s a committed way of living, and Who you commit your life to will dictate every decision for the rest of your life. Loving God with my whole heart requires the grace of God because I cannot do it with my own strength. I must draw from the life of Christ.

Loving God with all your mind means allowing Christ to transform your mind into His. “Do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discover what is the will of God, what is good, and pleasing, and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

Jesus wants to transform our minds so we become like Him in this world. We can know what Jesus is like by reading His life in Scriptures, in the Gospels. We can allow the very words of sacred Scripture to mold and shape our minds. By doing so, I become familiar with how Jesus loved people, how He worshipped, how He prayed, how He rested, how He recreated, etc. I can also guard what enters my mind and ask myself, “Does this particular show, music, or book help or hinder my love for God?” Philippians 4:8 is a great criterion to put up against what enters my mind.

Finally, loving God with your strength means using your gifts and talents for Him. What you do with your life matters. God gives us gifts and we’re called to be good stewards of those gifts, which means accepting everything with humility and a sense of detachment. Humility is simply knowing who you are — a beloved daughter or son of the Father. A great prayer I personally pray is “Lord, I will serve who You want, when You want, where You want, and how You want.”

These are just a few examples of things that we can do to truly ask God how we are loving Him with our heart, mind, and strength. The love of neighbor is a natural overflow from these properly ordered loves.

My prayer for you is that you allow the Lord to show you an area where He wants more, and you respond to that invitation wholeheartedly.

Ali Hoffman

Ali Hoffman is a regular columnist for the North Texas Catholic. She served as a missionary for two years with NET Ministries, was a youth minister for 6 years, and currently is a freelance artist, speaker, and creator. Find more of her columns for the North Texas Catholic here.

conversion, Jesus, faith, His invitation, God's plans, trending-english