Mark 12:30

Mark 12:30 is Jesus' answer to the question of the greatest commandment -- to love God with the whole of our being. A scribe had asked which commandment is first of all, and Jesus replies by quoting the heart of Israel's confession.

The command is to love "the Lord thy God," the one true God, and the measure is total: "with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." These four terms are not meant to divide a person into separate compartments but to sweep up the entire self -- our emotions and will, our inner life, our thinking, and our energy and effort. Nothing is left out. To love God this way is to give Him the whole person, holding nothing back. Jesus calls this "the first commandment," the foundation on which all faithful living rests. Significantly, the greatest command is not a rule to keep at arm's length but a call to love -- a relationship of wholehearted devotion. Everything else in the life of faith flows from this fountain. Before God asks anything of our hands, He asks for our love, and He asks for all of it. This is both the highest duty and the deepest joy of human life.