OK - How many of you have, in the last few days, set a New Year’s Resolution?

How many of you have vowed to change certain things as you enter 2021? We all do! let us know in the comments what you have put down!

We have health goals, maybe lose some weight, eat better this year and drink more water? Add in a bit of exercise. How about spending more time with the family, or doing things that I enjoy more? If you are a Christian, maybe you want to pray more or spend a bit more time in Bible Study?

And these are all important things...but they are not everything.

This week, we have a chap who goes to Jesus and basically asks Jesus to summarize everything down to a simple point that he can both understand and apply to life. It’s as if this chap goes to Jesus and says to Jesus, listen - I am planning for 2021 - what’s the most important thing that I should focus on this year? Actually, not just for 2021. What is the most important thing we should focus on full stop?

Let’s read and find out.

OK - so Jesus summarises the commandments of God into two key areas:

1. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, which will look at today, and
2. Love your neighbour as yourself - which James Sloan will tackle next week. I see he has already put up Twitter polls for it!

So, to mix things up a little, I asked a few of my friends a simple question - what does it mean to you to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

First up - we have John Harding. If you don't know John, he is the senior pastor at Frontline Church, which Crowd is a part of. I've known John for years, he has spoken at CROWD a number of times and a great teacher - so I was keen to hear what he had to say.

John Harding

Loving God with all your heart, mind, soul. And strength for me really is the essence of the Christian faith. It's about intimacy. It's about a relationship with God. It's so different to religion, which is about work and striving and good behaviour in order to somehow try to connect, we've got to know God, actually, for us, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, it starts with God's desire to love us and to be in relationship with us.

And so all of our behaviour, as followers of Jesus has to flow out of a reflex out of that single starting point of loving God with all that we are and all that we have. It's like a reflex no different from blinking if you're poked in the eye.

For example, if you take the example of marriage with my wife, Kirsten, I don't have to buy her flowers. I don't have to tell her that she's looking lovely. I don't have to do those things. But because I love her, Those things flow naturally out of that expression of love. They are ways that love is made manifest. And so it is with us in the Christian faith. That's why when Jesus was asked about the law, what law should you follow? He said, Love. St. Augustine, the great father of the faith said, "Love God and do as you please." And I think he was absolutely right. Because when we truly love God, all of our behaviour flows out of that reflex, out of that that is the starting point for a transformed life. It's about a relationship. It's about intimacy. It's not about religion, or duty or good deeds.

Loving God is something that we naturally do as Christians.

I love this. So for John - Loving God is something that we naturally do as Christians. It is what gives our faith life and stops it being a dry, duty-bound, religion. Did you notice what else John said that I think is so important - it starts with God's desire to love us.

We can love God because He first loved us.

But is it really that easy as it sounds? Is it actually that straight-forward to do?

Well, here's our next guest - someone who hasn't been on a CROWD Livestream yet, but is one of my oldest and closest friends. I met Tony back when we were at Uni together. He is such a cool guy and we often spend many hours laughing together. Tony, and his wife, Anni, pastor Tower Hamlets Community Church, which is in London. Here's what Tony had to say.

Tony Uddin

Love the Lord with all of your heart, and your soul, and your mind, and your strength. These words from Jesus are incredible, aren't they? They're incredible because they both inspire and frustrate us.

They inspire us because they show us that a different way of living is possible. They show us a way of living that is free from the power of self, they show us that there is a future is possible that is different from the way in which we live, which is full of selfishness. That selfishness that hinders our relationship with God that breaks our relationships with others, and that destroys the world around us.

These words of Jesus speak to us about the fact that it is possible to live differently

A bit like a sunrise on a beautiful day that shows an incredible VISTA that illuminates something that was hidden. These words of Jesus inspire, and yet also at the same time, they manage to frustrate us. They frustrate us because they show us how utterly unable we are, to live up to them. A bit like trying to eat a bowl of soup with a fork, it's just not possible.

They speak to us of the need to love God with all of our hearts, when so often it's our hearts lack of faithfulness that's the issue.

They speak of our need to love God with all of our mind when actually so much of the time our minds are darkened and broken. And it's our minds that get us into so much trouble.

They speak of loving God with all that we are when all that we are is actually so far from God.

This command encourages us to love our neighbour as ourself, when actually if we're honest and if we're being real, we have to understand that we fail to love ourselves and our neighbours continually.

You know, the worst thing that you can do with this command is to think you've got it covered. The worst thing you can do is say okay, Jesus, I've got this, because actually shows that we haven't understood it at all.

Know this commandment, rather than speaking to us of our potential speaks to us of our utter failure of our helplessness, to obey it.

When we listen to this command, we're a bit like a starving man who is watching pictures of fine dining projected onto his walls, he may see it, but actually, all it does is it increases his awareness of the problem. The command of Jesus shows us how utterly, utterly helpless we are. What this command ought to do is to show us not our great potential, not our great ability to keep it rather than it ought to show us our need of Jesus.

This command shows us that without a transforming relationship with Jesus, without God changing our hearts, we will never be able to live up to it.

My prayer for you as you watch this today is that hearing this command of Jesus ruins you for the ordinary. Years ago, the indie band James, they sang that song, 'Sit Down' with those words, "if I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor."

My prayer for you today is that the hearing this command of Jesus would inspire you dressed like that, that you would no longer be able to live with this poverty because you've seen the riches that are available. But those riches are only available in Jesus. I pray that hearing this command of Jesus would show you your need for him. God bless you.

Without Jesus this becomes and almost impossible task

So maybe it isn't that easy to do after all? And I think Tony is right, without Jesus this becomes and almost impossible task - because as humans, we tend to be - well, a little bit selfish, don't we? Come on admit it!

But as Christians, we do have the strength of Christ to help us…so what are some of the practical things I can do when it comes to loving God?

Well, let's bring on Tim Bond - another great friend of mine who is the co-pastor of Freedom Church in Jersey. Tim and I have been friends for a while now, he's an amazing chef, has a beautiful family and just an all round good guy. Here's what Tim had to say:

Tim Bond

I’ve been married for 23 years. And I know as well as anyone else that love is not just a feeling of the heart, it is a decision on a day to day basis. And my wife knows that as well because she's married to me. So what does it mean for me to love the Lord with all my heart, I've got three simple things really.

The first is to make him the foundation of my decisions, the foundation of my decisions, everything I decide to do, needs to be submitted to him, often I can see where things might land up, if the motivation of my heart is something different, is something different to loving Him with all of my heart. So I can actually test that against this word.

The second is to make him the focus of my attention, the focus of my attention, what you do with your eyes, dictates what your heart will want to do, and will do. I f you give something your attention, it becomes your desire. What is your desire becomes your action, what is your action becomes your habits, and what are your habits become your character, they actually form what you look like. So my second simple thing is, focus my attention, make him the focus of my attention. The Bible actually says, doesn't it, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author perfecter of our faith.

And the third one bit weird, make Him the fulfilment of your desires. For millions and millions of years, millions and millions of people have made other things the fulfilment of their desire. People individually have this kind of YouTube utopian ideal of what heaven would be like when I get this partner who's slim and beautiful. When I become slim and beautiful. When I get a certain amount of money when I do certain things, then I'll be happy. This is my utopian ideal. Well, the final thing for me is to make Jesus the fulfilment of my desires. ie, here's the gold that we can go for. Revelation three says, I can't sue you to buy gold refined in the fire, which I think is a beautiful scripture. And it reminds me of how to make Jesus fundamentally the fulfilment of my desire.

That said, I don't do this stuff. I don't do it very regularly. I fight to be able to do it. And I constantly ask God to help me to do and the beauty of this whole thing is that whilst Jesus commands us to love the Lord, our God with all our heart, he also equips us and he fills us with possibility. And he gives us himself in grace for when we make the tragic mistakes that we often make. Making the foundation of your decisions, making the focus of your attention and making the fulfilment of your desires.

Whether you are a Christian or not - which on of these would you have to wrestle with the most in your faith journey?

So - what Tim had to say was super helpful wasn't it, and super practical for loving God.

1. Make him the foundation of your decisions.
2. Make him the focus of your attention.
3. Make him the fulfilment of your desires.

Whether you are a Christian or not - which one of these would you have to wrestle with the most in your faith journey?

For me, it would the third one - making him the fulfilment of my desires. Most of my time and run my businesses, and there is a standard definition of success that comes with that world - run a business, make money, make money get the sports car, yacht and summer house, right? It is easy to get caught up in that, I think, to find fulfilment in them. And whilst it is not necessarily wrong - I want to find my fulfilment in Him first.

I think that loving God is not some weird, Hollywood version of love. But real, genuine authentic love because love isn't always easy, is it? Sometimes it's a hard decision.

So let's bring on our final guest for today - our very own Sally Burch. Sadly, Sally couldn't be with us live this week as she had other pressing engagements, but she did record this for us, which is just fantastic.

Sally Burch

Thinking about what it means to love God, with your whole heart is an interesting one to get your head around. And it's difficult because it's so tied up in our emotions, in how we feel emotionally. And I don't know about you, but my emotions can change within one minute, let alone within one day.

And so for me, loving God with my whole heart is about knowing who He is, no matter how I feel.

So for example, if I've been praying about something that I really want to happen, and it hasn't happened, that can leave me feeling disappointed, upset or angry. But at the end of the day, that doesn't change how much I love God or how I feel towards God.

This is something that I talked about a few weeks ago in CROWD church about how when my mum died. After my mom died, I spent a lot of time feeling devastated and angry as to why it happened, and why she wasn't healed - all sorts of emotions. But I came to that understanding that actually, God was still faithful, God was still good. And I didn't understand the circumstances or why it had happened and I had to get to the point where I was okay with that. To know that God hadn't changed.

I think that we can actually learn to love God more as well as we as we get to know God more and understand who he is, then that love can really deepen.

And we were talking about this in the CROWD church over Christmas, that you can know please, we can have hope and love as we get to know and understand who God is.

So then that's really what it means to me to love God with your whole heart. What you love, what you treasure, what you spend your time and your energy on, is reflected in the love that we have for God.

Loving God with your whole heart, for me, means that no matter how my emotions sway me at any particular given time, I know that God is good and God is faithful.

Love God despite what your emotions are telling you

Love that! Love God despite what your emotions are telling you because it is easy to be guided by your emotions...but whilst they tell you how you feel now, they aren't always a reliable indicator of what you should be doing right now.

Sally talked about how it was hard to lose her Mum, which I appreciate her sharing - but how in the midst of her hard and difficult questions, she found that her love for God got stronger. Which all sounds a bit illogical - but it is the truth that so many of us find - that whilst life is not free from struggles and pain, we can, in the midst of them, find a love that satisfies our deepest longing and our deepest need, that we are free to choose and free to choose to love God.

If we do that first if loving God becomes our first key life goal for 2021, if it becomes our focus, then our foundations are right, and we start to focus in on the things that matter to God and not just our new year’s Wishlist. And what matters to God? Well, the first biggie - loving your neighbour as yourself - which is next week, so make sure you tune in for that.

What's your takeaway?

What's your takeaway from this week's conversation? What do you think about the command to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? What do you struggle with the most out of this?