Loving Completely

Hello Fellow OBSers' and all my other friends,

For those who don't know, OBSers are the Online Bible Studiers' that have joined me in an online Bible study. We are going through the Book "What Happens When Women Say Yes to God" by Lysa Terkeurst. We are working on Chapter 1. If you are interested in joining us go to Proverbs31 Ministries OBS.

Now that I got that out of the way. Hi! I'm Angie. This is my 2nd OBS and I'm already loving it! God is truly speaking to me. So let's get to it!

Our memory verse this week is Deuteronomy 6:5. I like to make the memory verse all pretty and decorate it to reflect what the verse means to me. I print it on card stock or regular paper and glue it on an index card. Here is my interpretation of this weeks' verse in art form (by the way I used PrintMaster to design it I am NOT artistically inclined).

At the end of Chapter 1 Lysa asked these questions:

Read Deuteronomy 6:5

•           How can you love God with all your heart?

•           How can you love God with all your soul?

•           How can you love God with all your strength?

Well, I gave my answers and went on about my business. The next day I read the verse again and began to work on making my cute little index card. That's when it began to bug me. Not how can I love God in those 3 ways but do I really know what that verse is saying to ME. So I began verse mapping. Now I don't know how you verse map, but I read the verse several times, pray over it and ask God to show me what He wants me to learn about it. Then I start looking at each word, kind of like the video shows us. Now, before I actually go through my thought process, I want you to understand, what you got out of this verse and what I got out of this verse may be 2 VERY different things. Let me just say, sometimes I can be an "out of the box" thinker. :)

Let's begin by looking at the first 3 words, "You shall love". Oops I better tell you, I use the ESV translation, so if it's a little different than yours that could be why. So, "You shall love", well this is pretty obvious the first word is YOU, that's me, so I'm going to replace you with my name  "Angie shall love". It makes it more personal doesn't it? "Shall love" that is the verb of the sentence. Ok, I chose to break it down into 2 pieces shall and love. Let's look at shall first. What do you think of when you think of the word shall? I think of the future. Now you may not, because it can also mean "will", like this is what you WILL do, like a command. Well I happen to think this particular "shall" is a combination of the 2. So it's like saying "Angie, this is what you will do now and will continue to do in the future until otherwise notified". Isn't that how God's covenants with the Israelites worked. Until He made another covenant with them, this one was in effect. Here's the deal with this covenant, WE HAVE NEVER BEEN NOTIFIED OTHERWISE! So, as far as God is concerned and as far as we should be concerned it is STILL IN EFFECT!

This is Petey, my baby, since all my children are grown.

Now to the second part of the verb, love. Love can be a tricky word for us. We love our husbands or boyfriends, we love our children, we love our church, we love our dog (ok I really do LOVE my dog, he's like one of my children!!!), we love our car, we love the Texas Rangers, and we love the OU SOONERS!!! Do I love my husband the same way I love my dog? Really!? I DON'T think so!!!.......He'll be glad to hear that.......We actually have to move on to the bottom of the verse to get to the way we are supposed to love, but you can be sure it's not how you love your favorite sports team or your car or even your pet. OUCH! Probably not even with the unconditional love we have for our spouses and children.

So far this verse is telling me (or you can put your name in place of mine, if you'd like), "Angie love forever...". Looks like we need to move on to find out who I'm supposed to love and how I'm supposed to love them.

This is the whole reason I dove into this verse. You may think I'm crazy and that's ok, I probably am. I looked at this next phrase and thought, "I've seen this phrase a hundred times, but I'm not sure I understand what it's saying, "the Lord your God". That has always sounded redundant to me. If so, why would we use that phrase? Let me explain why it sounds redundant to me. My name is Angela Rene' Pettijohn, but I go by the nickname Angie. Let's say that my husband introduces me to someone and says, " I would like for you to meet Angela my Angie. That makes absolutely no sense! He didn't tell them WHO I was to him he just told them my name, TWICE. How is the person my husband is talking to supposed to know our relationship, what we mean to each other? Unless he tells them, by giving me a title. So when he introduces me he says this is  Mrs. Pettijohn or this is my wife Angie . Keeping that in mind, I began to research both words "Lord" and "God" separately. Webster defines lord (low case "l") as "one having power and authority over others". However, in John Gill's Exposition of the Bible, he talks of Lord (capital “L”) as being The King, The Ruler The Lawgiver. So Lord is actually His title. Then when I looked at God. I found from Webster, that they define God as "the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe". That may be "technically" correct, but it is SO impersonal, and God is SO PERSONAL!!! He is my creator. He is my father. He is my provider. I could go on and on, but this is what we conclude, "the Lord our God" means The King our Father or The King our Creator. Express it however you want, but I think you understand. That gives me chills to think the Ruler of this universe is my Father, my Creator and He is saying to me,  "Angie, love me forever, till the end of time."  Let that wash over you. Just meditate on that for a minute.  I'm so blown away that the King of the World, Creator of all things wants me, insignificant to the billions of people in the world, just an average person, He wants...NO, He expects me to LOVE Him till the end of time!!!

Now that you've had a minute to let that soak in, we'll move on to the last 3 phrases, “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” When I think of loving with my heart I think of my affection, my affection is built on thoughts so I look at my heart as my mind and thought processes. To love with my soul is to love with that part of me that is not physical. It is my being, my essence, or spirit. Finally to love with my might or as some versions say my strength, is to love with my body. Look at what I just said… I have said that this verse describes us loving with our mind, spirit and body. That is the whole makeup of who we are. So what that tells me that God wants us to love Him fully completely with our total self! I should be completely in love with my God unable to get enough of HIM!!! Do I love Him that way?

Let’s put this verse together the way I’ve described it.

Angie (  place your name here  ) forever love your King and Creator with all that is in your mind and with your whole spirit and essence and with all the strength that is in your body!

It just doesn’t seem enough! They are just words. My prayer is that my life truly reflects the love I have for my King and Creator! How about you?

Living in Grace,

Angie