Has anyone beside me ever read from God’s Word a particular passage that made you insecure about your being right with God? I surely have, and one such passage is perhaps the very passage that is most important of all. In fact Jesus was asked one day the following question:
“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” ( Mk. 12:27 )
Here is His answer:
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” ( Mk. 12:29-30 )
In this passage where virtually all of the translations say “ALL your heart, soul, mind and strength,” the Greek manuscripts, from which the English words were translated, say “WHOLE” … i.e. – “whole heart,” etc. So this actual word Jesus used seems to me to add even more power to this vital passage..
So, a struggling mind and heart like mine says: “How, Lord?”
For me, I deeply believe the answer to this question is found in a familiar little verse in 1st John 4:19. John had already told us in chapter 2:15 “not” to love this world nor the things in it, and saying “if we love this world the love of God is not in us.” Then John REVEALS the secret insight for loving God as He commands. He simply says: “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Please follow me closely here. The word “because” here is what lexical scholars call a “causal conjunction.” It very simply means that the words “He first loved us” are the cause that produces our love for Him.
Notice that this verse gives no causal power to some decision, efforts, or resolve on our part. So, it necessarily seems that God loving us, conjoined with us coming, by real faith, to wake up to how incredibly He has always loved us, simply generates a love within us that can be described by the words “whole heart.”
So, the conclusion would be that for us to ever have this whole-hearted love we simply need to actually “see” and really believe the love He has for us.