Jesus taught us that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37). In other words, we must love Him with all that we are, with our whole person. Loving with our hearts is easy to understand. The heart is the seat of emotion. We need to love God with all of our emotions. Loving with our mind is also easy to understand. Our thoughts must reflect our love for God. But what about our soul? What does it mean to love Him with all our soul?
When we speak of the soul, we are speaking of that part of us that is unique to us. While our bodies all have some differences from those of other people, we all have eyes, noses, ears, and all the other parts that make up our physical being, that make us human. It’s our souls that truly make us different. They make us who we are. Our souls embody our personalities and our wills.
To love God with all of our souls means that we are to love Him with what makes us, well, us. I may be introverted where you may be extroverted. I may be a morning person where you are a night owl. But, whatever I am and whatever you are, we should love God with all of it, with every bit of our unique personalities.
To love God with all of our souls also means to love Him with our wills. Because of His incredible love and grace, God created each and every one of us with free will. We can choose to be what we want to be. We can choose to do what we want to do. And, we can choose to love God or not love Him. But, if we choose to love Him, we must do it fully, with our full will. It should not be when we feel like it, or when we are having a good day. In my opinion, it’s on the days when we don’t feel like it, when things are not so good, that the will really comes into play. It’s then that we really have to exercise our full will and give Him all of the love He deserves.
Love the Lord your God. Love Him with all of your heart, with your deepest emotions. Love Him with all of your mind, with every thought and with your full intellect. And, love Him with your soul, with every part of your personality and with every bit of your will.
A Worshiper's Journal 