Jesus tells us in Mark 12:30,

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your HEART, and with all your SOUL, and with all your MIND, and with all your STRENGTH."

What does it mean to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? To answer this question, we first need to go back and review our basic definitions of these words as given in Section 1, Chapter 7. They are the following:

Man’s Spirit is the means by which he has God-consciousness and is able to communicate with and have relationship with God. It is also the means by which man receives God’s will and plan for his life. Finally, it is the vehicle through which spiritual gifts are given and manifested. (1 Cor 2:10-15).

Man’s Soul is the means by which he has self-consciousness. Second, it is the medium between the spirit and the body. Third, it is what man becomes and manifests through his physical body in personality, vocation, and lifestyle as a result of heart response to, one, what he has learned through his mind body, conscience, and emotions; two, through what he has received from God through his spirit; and three, as a result of those abilities and talents God has chosen to give him individually.²⁵ This is the reason for the resurrection: so man can continue to give expression of his soul-life through his body. In hell one continues to have self-consciousness, but opportunity to give expression of that soul-life is forever ceased which is what is meant by the destruction of the soul: no means to develop or give expression of the soul-life.

Man’s Body is the means by which he has world-consciousness and is the means by which he relates to and communicates with the physical world through his five senses. Second, it is the means through which his soul carries out Jesus’ love and plan for his life outlined in the Bible and revealed through his spirit through union with the Holy Spirit.

Man’s Heart, the essence of his soul, is the part of man which decides how he will respond to what he has learned through his spirit, soul and body; through his mind, through gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit, through the promptings of his conscience, and through his emotions. It is the volitional part of man.

Man’s Mind an organ of the soul, is his computer by which he stores information gained through his five senses—the body, spirit, soul, conscience, heart, and emotions.

Second, before we can go further in dealing with each of these aspects of mans personality properly, we need to ask the question, what is the heart of Jesus? Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:9,

"The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."

Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 2:4 that God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." The heart of Jesus, His most important priority in the Church and in our lives individually is Evangelism: bringing men and women to saving faith in Him.

Why did Jesus come into the world? We read in the Gospel of John,

Dr. Bill Bright, who was the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote,

"Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, and every Christian is under divine orders to be a faithful witness for Christ. Jesus said, ‘Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you prove that you are my disciples.’ It logically follows that the most important thing I can possibly do as a Christian is to allow the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His Resurrection power to have complete, unhindered control of my life, otherwise he cannot continue seeking and saving the lost through me."^1/2

The Scripture clearly shows us that the foundational motivation for Jesus’ will for our lives is asking the question, Jesus in what career, life-style, and relationship with the opposite sex can I best be a light for you?

It is true that Jesus is coming soon, much sooner than any of us think. It is not true that He is coming soon because He wants to judge the world and send everyone to hell. Jesus does not desire to send anyone to hell. When Israel became apostate, turned away from God and focused on their own self-centered interests rather than those of God, God spoke to Israel through Ezekiel the prophet and said the following:

"‘As I live,’ declares Adonai Yehovah, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’" (Ezekiel 33:11).

God sends no one to hell in pleasure, He loathes this option and only does it because man has given him no other option. Jesus, wants no one to go to hell. He wants men to turn to Him and be saved. But more than His grief over men’s lack of knowledge of Him and turning to Him, Jesus is even more grieved over His people daily and deliberately saying no to taking the initiative to weekly go out and share His love and forgiveness with others and warn them of the wrath to come. Only as we take the initiative, volition, to go out and share Jesus with others, can men know of Jesus’ love and forgiveness and know how to turn to Him and receive His salvation for them.

The heart of Jesus is Evangelism and if you want to please him, then the focus of your life and free time will be to do whatever you can as an individual with your talents and resources to do Evangelism and deliver others from the wrath of God to come and bring them into His blessed kingdom. With this in mind, we can now go on to discuss what Jesus means by loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

To love Jesus with all our Heart means to turn our volition to serve him with all our talents and abilities to the end of bringing others to Jesus. When we do this, we are loving Jesus with all our heart. We are also loving Jesus with all our heart when we exercise our volition to obey Him in anything else He tells us to do concerning any detail of our lives.