...With all of your heart, soul and mind.

I was having a conversation about singleness, dating and marriage with my mentor today and I realized a lot of things (Chelsea you are great) but most of all I was reminded of something really important: I already have a first love. The Lord of heaven and earth is my first love.

I feel like God has laid this verse on my heart today:
Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.
Matthew 22:37-38

Its humbling to think that I have and can become apathetic to this verse and its implications. It is a verse that many people can quote quickly, almost mechanically. But this verse is not mechanical at all. It describes how my relationship with God should be; it is real, living and dynamic. I must love Him with all of my heart (my emotions, passions and pursuits), all of my soul (who I am at my innermost being), and all of my mind (my thoughts, intelligence and decisions). With my entire being that He created, I must love Him.

And He loved me first before I loved Him.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:7

The gospel changes everything doesn't it? Ultimately, I am fully justified, fully loved, and fully secure in Jesus Christ. May I never look elsewhere for any of those things... and may I rest in the perfect character of my God and trust that He holds my future. Singleness, dating, or being married is not what defines me, and it is completely secondary to my relationship with my first love.



In C.J Mahaney's words:

‎"Your greatest need is not a spouse. Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God-and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need? Trust His sovereignty, trust His wisdom, trust His love."