Is it possible for us to "love God with all your heart and mind"? (Matt 22:37)

zoidar said:

Is it possible for us to love God with all your heart, soul and mind?

Why? Why not?

Matthew 22:37
And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

Forgot the poll... Is it possible to add afterwards somehow?

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With a new heart led by the Spirit, I think such a heart would have no other choice because that would be the new nature given to it: See Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, and John 3.

zoidar said:

Is it possible for us to love God with all your heart, soul and mind?

Why? Why not?

Matthew 22:37
And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

Forgot the poll... Is it possible to add afterwards somehow?

Click to expand...

Paul the apostle wrote, "For to me to live is Christ..." (Phil. 1:21) He seemed to think he was doing just as Matthew 22:37 commands. I know of no apostle or Early Church leader who contradicted Paul's claim. And his life certainly seemed to be characterized by a wholesale dedication of himself to the will and way of God, arising from a radical, life-ordering desire - love - for God.

I think the modern western Church is just as Jesus said it would be (Matthew 13:24-30): crowded with "tares," or "false brethren," as Paul called them (2 Corinthians 11:26; Galatians 2:4). The "tares" in the Church - now constituting a majority within it - look at each other and see "Christian living" that is devoid of anything like the sort of spiritual life described of genuine believers in Scripture and so they think that such a life is impossible, an unattainable, theoretical standard that God does not expect anyone to attain. But what is common Christian living today is not normal - that is, biblical - Christian living.

If the love of God is shed abroad in the heart of the genuine believer in the Person of the Holy Spirit, as the Bible says (Romans 5:5; Galatians 5:22), the believer has within them the very sort of love Christ spoke of in Matthew 22:37. The question is, then: Why don't Spirit-indwelt people evidence the perfect, self-sacrificing, wholesale love of the Spirit in their living?

There seem to be three possibilities (usually mixed together): False conversion, the spiritually-stifling effect of sin, and/or ignorance.

zoidar said:

This reminds me, as a newly born again believer this simply was how it was. It's become more of an intellectual "choice thing" for me today, not that much of a feeling or burning inside of my heart, sadly. I'm hoping to be renewed with that love.

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I think it is that yearning versus the battle against the flesh (Romans 7-8) that we find, ironically, to concede to God's Will for ourselves; our very existence is then summarized in Romans 9.

Just pondering the original post and the answers and this came to mind.

When we love, we put the estimation of the beloved as the goal: in other words, God rules and we obey. When we don't, we put our own aspirations as the goal and use the "beloved:" in other words, we lead and not God. It's a strong thought in both old and new testaments that if we love Him, we will heed what He says (As it is phrased in at least one place, we "keep His commandments.")