Worship

This devotional is from Winston T. Smith as part of The Heart of the Matter volume. It is based on Mark 12:28-34 and Christ's admonition to love the Lord completely.

Heart, mind, soul, and strength obviously overlap. God uses these overlapping terms so that there can be no mistaking that he requires from us an all-consuming love. Is there any part of life that falls outside of your heart, mind, soul, and strength? We're accustomed to dividing life into the spiritual and nonspiritual, handing the spiritual things over to God and managing the rest by ourselves. There are certain areas that we like to consider outside God's control. But this command makes clear that God should be at the center of it all. All barriers between the spiritual and nonspiritual are broken down.

The Bible has a word for this kind of all-consuming love, a devotion that shapes and directs every area of life: Worship. That may surprise you since we often use the word worship in a very limited sense. We think of worship as a set of specific activities that we perform on one day of the week. We go to a special place, sing songs, pray, listen to a message, stand, kneel, etc. We then leave that special place and worship is over. It is true that God tells us to worship him that way, but the command to love God with our whole being teaches that every aspect of our lives is an act of worship. Everything we do is guided by our love or God, our every act one of devotion to him.