You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:5Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart,
with all your soul, and
with all your mind.’
Matthew 22:37
All means ALL!
When we pray that the children in our lives would love God wholeheartedly, it means ALL IN. Not half-way, not half-heartedly, and not Sundays only.
When a mama asks her teenager to take out the trash, she doesn’t expect to see the trash sitting by the front door. It must make it all the way to the curb.
When a wife wants a faithful husband, she doesn’t mean 364 days a year – she expects 365 (and some years 366)!
And when God commands us to love Him with ALL our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we need to apply the same high standard. ALL IN!
As we pray for the children in our sphere of influence to love God wholeheartedly, we can also ask God to reveal where we ourselves might be holding out.
Here are some questions we can ask as we pray for the children in our lives (and for ourselves):
- Do I have a divided heart? Is there anything I treasure more than God?
- Do I find myself praying without ceasing – having on ongoing conversation with God throughout my day?
- Does God enter my thought life on Tuesday morning or Friday afternoon?
- Do I ask God about what I buy, read, and watch?
- Has Sunday morning worship become an optional activity? Am I finding reasons (I don’t feel like braving the rain, there’s a mountain of dirty laundry, I’m in the middle of a great book and can’t wait to finish it) not to gather with other believers?
- Do I give God the first and best of each day?
- Do I speak up when others speak poorly of my God?
- Do my posts, tweets, and social media comments indict me as a woman of God?
- Do thoughts about God in my mind and heart make their way into my conversations with others?
I hope one or more of these questions convict you as they do me. Perhaps they could even prompt a loving-God-wholeheartedly conversation with your child, grandchild, nephew or niece, a student in your class or church, or a young person in your neighborhood.
Lord God, I pray this child would put You on the throne of his/her life each day and every day. I pray this would be deliberate, conscious, daily choice. I pray he/she would love You most and best and with a wholehearted devotion.
In this week’s teaching lecture from our II Corinthians Bible study, Laura drilled down on II Corinthians 1:3-11, with a focus on suffering. As believers, we will encounter difficult circumstances. And when we do, we may struggle with hard question: Does God see my pain? Does He care? Why doesn’t He stop my suffering — or simply prevent it in the first place?
As you watch this week’s devotional, we pray you are encouraged as you consider how our great God can use the suffering we experience for our benefit.
If you live in Northwest Arkansas or Northeast Oklahoma, we invite you to join our in-person Bible study on Wednesday mornings in Siloam Springs, AR. Reach out through our Contact form for more information about how you can gather with us this fall!
