All Your Heart--Love for God, which is God’s intention in giving us His Law, as we have seen, begins in the heart.

The Rule of Law: Government of the Soul (2)

The heart is the heart of the matter in the life of faith.

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart…” Deuteronomy 6.5

Love for God, which is God’s intention in giving us His Law, as we have seen, begins in the heart. The heart is the primary component of the soul, for from it, Solomon explained, flow all the issues of life (Prov. 4.23). In Scripture “the heart” sometimes stands for the whole soul; more often, though, it speaks to a particular aspect of the soul, that region which generates and discharges the affections.

The soul consists of heart, mind, and conscience – three distinct regions or components with three distinct functions, each overlapping and interacting with the other in a continuous dialog, the fruit of which is the actions that come out in our words and deeds. The heart is that part of the soul which inclines us toward something or which leads us to avoid or resist something. Its dossier includes nurturing and deploying the various feelings, attitudes, sentiments, aspirations, and hopes which give definition and direction to our lives. In its natural, unredeemed, state, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, so that we desire, love, and pursue all the wrong things in life (Jer. 17.9). In redeeming us, the Lord, by His Word and Spirit, according to the Gospel, gives us a “new heart”, so that we might begin to love Him as He intends (Ezek. 36.26, 27).

Unless we have such a “circumcised” heart, we shall not be able to keep the Law of God according to His design (Deut. 30.1-10). Hence, the importance of “keeping watch” over our hearts and of allowing the Law of God to instruct us concerning what to love and what to hate. We must focus our love, first and foremost, on God, in gratitude for His redemption, and with a determination to please Him as our ongoing expression of such gratitude.

The Law thus appropriately begins by instructing us to have only this God and no others as our focus of devotion. Moreover, not only must we strive to keep the focus of our hearts clear and constant; we must also work to improve the intensity of our affections, until we are increasingly learning to love God with all our hearts, all our affections oriented to Him and moving us ever more continuously to seek His Kingdom and righteousness in all things.

Loving God with all our hearts means not only continuous vigilance over our affections, but willingness for God to search our hearts by His Word and Spirit, as we wait on Him in prayer, and to renew our hearts wherever necessary, so that He might rule our souls by His Law unto our benefit and His glory (Ps.139.23, 24; Ps.51.10).

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.