Deuteronomy 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
I’m afraid many in today’s culture are suffering from heart disease. Not atrial fibrillation or clogged arteries or endocarditis. I’m talking about our spiritual hearts.
The first commandment warns us not to have other gods. Both Old and New Testaments call us to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our might. We’re to be careful not to let any factor or force violate our whole-hearted devotion to our Creator.
But as Thaddeus Williams writes in his insightful book, Don’t Follow Your Heart, self-worship has become the world’s fastest growing religion. We replace God’s magnificent purposes with our puny plans. Rather than follow the timeless wisdom found in God’s Word, we give more credence to our fluctuating emotions. We prefer to be our own god, thank you very much.
Of course, the desire to do things our way began long before Frank Sinatra’s signature lyrics. When Israel came out of Egypt’s bondage, they quickly abandoned the God who had rescued them. They made a golden calf to worship “what their hands had made” (Acts 7:14). It wasn’t the image they revered, but their work. Exactly what their hearts told them to do.
I recently spoke to someone raised in a Christian home who has now abandoned his faith. He told me he came to the conclusion there were no absolutes. No absolute truth. No absolute God. But since every person is designed by their Creator to worship, he had to fill the void with something. So he’s following his heart. Joining the 86% of Americans who say enjoying ourselves is the highest goal in life.
Jeremiah lamented that “the heart is deceptive above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The God who made us can. The God who made us to pursue something awesome, something far better than satisfying ourselves. It’s wiser to follow the God who made us than fickle hearts that will inevitably lead us down the wrong path.
You may not be wrestling with this issue right now. But I bet there are people in your sphere who are heading toward cardiac arrest. People who need to see there’s a God far more worthy of worship than themselves. One worthy of loving with all their heart, soul, and might.