You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. – Deuteronomy 6:5
Jimmy the Dog was important in British medical history in the 1890s. He became the first mammal to test new equipment developed by physiologist Augustus Desire Walter—the electrocardiogram, the EKG. Jimmy’s heart rate was monitored by the new machine as he was injected with doses of saline to measure changes in the rhythm of his heartbeats. Early versions of the EKG weighed 150 pounds or more and were powered by 6-volt automotive batteries. Today, programmed by microchips, EKGs play a central role in understanding heart issues, and qualified medical personnel are required to interpret them.
When it comes to your spiritual life, God reads your heart’s EKG. Only God is qualified to determine your spiritual health. “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). A properly functioning heart is centered on God. Today’s verse, called the V’ahavta, continues the Shema, the essence of Judaism that God must be above all and loved at all times. Theologian Charles Spurgeon wrote, “It is not a little love that God deserves, nor is it a little love that He will accept. He blesses us with all of his heart and all his might and, after that fashion, we are to love him.”
As God looks at your spiritual EKG, will He see a heart fully committed to Him, a heart that desires complete obedience to Him, a heart full of love for Him? Will He see the rhythmic beating of a heart that is kind, patient, compassionate, merciful, and loving to others? Ask the Lord to help you, by His Spirit, to love Him and those around you so well that people are drawn to His salvation and heart transformation. Pray for America’s Surgeon General to have a receptive heart toward the Lord.
Today’s Verse: Deuteronomy 6:5
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-9
“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
