All of You: Learning to Love God With Your Whole SelfExemplo

"Why did I say that?"

"Why did I do that?"

"How could I do something like that?"

We've all had moments where phrases like that circled in our minds. We needed help understanding where those words came from and what motivated our decision.

Just as we've been on the giving end of one of those moments, we've also been on the receiving end. We've all listened as someone said, "I don't know what came over me," "I don't know where that came from," or, my favorite, "That's not who I am."

When someone has said those words to me, I've tried to gently but firmly counter their logic with a different perspective. Deep down, we know where that came from—our hearts. It was us who did that. What came over us was what was inside of us.

One of Jesus's most consistent teachings can be summarized as follows: What comes out of us is the best indicator of what's inside us. In Matthew 15, Jesus spoke very directly about the power of our hearts. Using an analogy of eating, he rejected the idea that we are made unclean by what we eat. Rather, he taught his disciples that they were made unclean by what came out of them, which revealed what was going on inside of them.

We tend to think we are defiled by our environment, including the people around us, our social media feeds, and the political forces of the day. We even hear influential people tell us that you are what you eat, emphasizing a focus on the external and a tendency to try and control forces outside of ourselves.

Certainly, there is wickedness, evil, and sin out there. We live in a world where what was once honored is now dishonored, and what once was a source of shame is now a point of pride. It is not easy to walk in Jesus's way today.

But even as our world celebrates sin more and more, there is a bigger problem inside us. Within each of us is a heart that defiles us. Jesus did not modify our behavior; He came to transform us completely.

In the Great Commandment, Jesus taught us to love Him with our hearts. If we have a wicked heart, we need to address that problem. Sure, you could double down on your efforts and try harder. But, let's be honest—if that was going to work, wouldn't you have made it happen by now?

You need someone else to do work on your heart. You cannot do heart surgery on yourself. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about God's work of removing our heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh.

Jesus urgently warned His disciples not to follow in the way of the Pharisees, who focused on external righteousness. The Pharisees taught that change came from the outside in, while Jesus said that change came from the inside out.

Loving God with all of you means facing what's broken and unhealthy inside you. As many have said, what cannot be named cannot be healed. Once you've named or identified those places within your heart, you can surrender those to God to heal them.

If this intimidates you, remember what I shared on day 1. God knows all of you and loves all of you. He wants to be in a relationship with all of you. So don't hold back parts of your heart from Him.

On the following day of this plan, we will examine how we greet each other can help us love God better.