Deut 6:4+5, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 
    	Last time, we dealt with the opening part of this great commandment that was given by God through Moses. We spent our time looking at the fact that there is only One True God. Mankind may conjure up other deities to worship and unto whom to vainly and fruitlessly dedicate their lives.
There is, however, only one True God. He is the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth and all that is created. He, Alone, is ruling and overruling according to His Omniscience, and His Omnipotence, and His Omnipresence, which brings us into this morning’s consideration. The One True Living Lord God Almighty is the personal God Who created you and me for a relationship with Himself. 
	This was ever the plan and purpose of all of creation since before the foundation of time and eternity was put into place by Him. Nothing has been done by Him that did not bring this truth of our relatedness to Him into greater measure and foundational reality. All the unlimited resources of His creation has been flowing forth from Him to establish this heart to heart connection and bond in Jesus Christ, The Only Begotten Son of God, Our Lord and Our Savior and Our Brother.
	This is why Moses states …The Lord is our God… Just as it is absolutely vital to know that there is only One True Living God, it is also extremely essential to understand that God is a personal God Who cares about His people. He works on their behalf in both the great details of sustaining life on this earth for all humanity, to the smallest detail of finding lost items for His Beloved Children. There is nothing too big or too small for God in His care of His people. 
God is not a nebulous overseer as some people try to portray Him. They may admit that He created the world, but then they try to say that He has no more active part in it. He created it. He blessed it, and then He left it. This is according to these adherents to the idea that we are basically on our own to use our best efforts to succeed in this world. These individuals are kind of the compromise denizens between Creationist and Atheists. As is true of all those who deny the existence of God, they want no real personal God because they do not want the fact of the responsibility and the consequences and the judgment for their actions. The truth of both hell and heaven fills them with dread. Accordingly they hide away in the false concept of thinking of themselves as OK as long as they are generally good people. This would necessitate the deceptive lie that there is no active, personal Holy God to Whom they are fully accountable.
	The truth is that God is very real and very interactive with humanity and very much holding all His Creation in His hands. He is the One God, the Only True and Living God. He is also a most personal God. He desires for His people to know and to love Him. As Moses pointed out in Deut 4:29 God will make Himself known and very essential to those who seek Him out. He does not withhold His presence from those who truly want to know Him and the fullness of His Being.
	Deut 4:29, But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. Sadly, this seeking, as highlighted in the context of this passage, is often in times of dire distress and terror and tribulation when there is no where else to turn. But even then, God is willing and able and forgiving and merciful and loving to make Himself very real to those who call out to Him and seek Him and turn to Him.
	This leads to the portion of this commandment that details the manner in which we are to regard and to cherish our relationship with the Lord God Almighty. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
  	Just as the Lord has given everything of Himself in His Omnipotence and His Omniscience and His Omnipresence into this relationship that He desires with His people, so are they, we, to do the same unto Him. There is to be nothing kept back from how we love and cherish and obey and worship and reverence and honor our Lord God, Jehovah, Savior and Redeemer and Provider. We are to invest everything we are and have and hope to be into this relationship with Him. It all is willingly and lovingly given over to Him to do with our lives as so pleases Him in trust and utter reliance upon His grace and His mercy. 
This is the core element of this commandment which is very much at the heart of our relationship and responsibility as the Children of God in Jesus Christ today. It has not been abolished and neither has it been set aside. As a matter of fact it is all the more critical. As each day of our lives passes, we are brought that much closer to the joy of our union in Christ Jesus in the perfection of His holiness and right standing with Our Heavenly Father. While we will know Him perfectly in the eternal glory of Heaven, we have those opportunities each day of our lives on this earth to partake of the beauty and the magnificence of this relationship in Jesus Christ right now.
That is what is inherently at the depth of what Moses declared from the heart of God to the Children of Israel, and to us as in Deut 10:12+13. Deut 10:12+13, "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord's commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? 
    	Reemphasizing again, we are no longer under the law as were those Israelites of old. Jesus has fulfilled the Law with all its requirements for sacrifices. It is through the blood of Christ and His resurrection life that we are eternally redeemed and now part of the very family of God. It is now, because of that relationship that we want to fully please God in our obedience to all that honors and glorifies Him. 
We are not saved because we are abiding by the requirement that we honor and obey and love Him. We are saved because of Christ’s death and resurrection. Because of God’s grace and mercy, we desire to bless and to cherish and to please Him with all our heart and soul and being. We are not under the Law any longer, but we abide by it in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s prompting, fully in line with the revealed Word of God. This is because we know that He is directing the every path that we walk for our well-being on this earth. It is a good thing for us to abide by these commandments which bring life and safety and refreshment to us, rather than to ignore them and thereby put up our self-built walls of resistance and self-righteousness and self-righteousness between God and ourselves.
	The beauty and the benefit and the exceeding value of this relationship with the Lord God are detailed by Moses in Deut 11:13-15. This was in specific regard to the Children of Israel entering the Promised Land. However, the widespread reality is also true of our spiritual life in Jesus Christ.
	Deut 11:13-15, "And it shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. And He will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you shall eat and be satisfied. 
    	Moses, in Deut 30:6, again highlighted the fact that God will make the every provision for this relationship Himself. He is the One Who chooses and knows those who will respond to His call. As indicated throughout the Old Testament, God was the One Who chose the Children of Israel unto Himself. He opened His arms wide for them in saving them from the slavery of Egypt and giving them the Land of His Promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He did all the work necessary to lay the foundation and to build this relationship with His creation.
	Deut 30:6, Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live. 
It is because God circumcised the hearts that they were made able to so enjoin themselves to Him as their Lord. This is the same work that He does in our hearts through the life of Jesus, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is vital so that we can be brought to the place that we want to know Him and the fullness of His love in Christ.
	The Psalmist then, in Ps 86:8-12, highlights the manner in which the Lord makes Himself very real and near to His people, which now includes you and me in Christ Jesus. It is the statement of the truth that God would make Himself known to far more nations than just the Children of Israel at the time of His choosing and in His working power. 
Ps 86:8-12, There is no one like Thee among the gods, O Lord; Nor are there any works like Thine. All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord; And they shall glorify Thy name. For Thou art great and doest wondrous deeds; Thou alone art God. Teach me Thy way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth; Unite my heart to fear Thy name. I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And will glorify Thy name forever. 
   	Notice that this psalm contains the cry of the writer for the Lord to teach and to guide. This is the manner in which a father deals with a son and works with his children to develop maturity and growth of character and being. So the Lord deals with us in our walk with Him. He manifests Himself as our loving Heavenly Father Who works to develop in each of His children the great love of the Lord and the character of being which is now our new nature in Jesus Christ. Our hearts are circumcised to know Him and to appreciate Him and to love Him with all our being and essence.
	This was emphasized over and over again in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. We have it recorded three times in the Gospels how Jesus taught that this commandment was and still is the greatest commandment of all. This is because it is the overriding relationship of God with man and man with the One True Living Lord God Almighty.
	Our first account of this wondrous truth from Our Lord and Savior is found in Matt 22:37+38. Matt 22:37+38, And He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. 
This was Jesus’ response to the lawyer who was questioning Him with the goal of discrediting Jesus at that point. However, the answer struck at the central reality as to why God had so manifested His great love to mankind as given in the Ten Commandments. It showed the very core reality of why God, the Father, had to send forth His Only Begotten Son to bring this whole relationship into the perfection of His will and His plan and His purpose as it had been from the very beginning.
The next accounting of this episode is in Mark 12:29-33. Mark 12:29-33, Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' "The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." And the scribe said to Him, "Right, Teacher, You have truly stated that He is One; and there is no one else besides Him; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." 
In this session, the relationship is even more pronounced as both the scribe and Jesus emphasize what is at the heart of the greatest of all the commandments. There is the personal stress on loving the Lord God primarily. Everything else including loving our neighbor as ourselves stems from that initial and core reality and truth. This is the recounting of the very basis of any true love among humanity. It is all set in our love for God and His love for us.
The final of the three descriptions of this account is that recorded in Luke 10:25-28. Here Jesus asked the lawyer what he understood as far as how to find eternal life. 
Luke 10:25-28, And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered and said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." 
    	Jesus placed the onus upon the lawyer to describe what he thought the law of God opened up for eternal life. It is this passage, with its relationship to our very personal Lord God Almighty, that the corresponding statement that we love Him with all our heart and soul and strength and mind is emphasized. In accordance with this truth, Jesus then told him that if we so know our Lord God in this manner and so focus our lives into this relationship, we will truly know the life that God has designed for mankind. It is to know and to appreciate and to experience what is our life in Christ. 
	He further detailed this in the 4th Gospel, that of John Chapter 14, verses 20+21. John 14:20+21, "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him." 
	There is no way to love the Lord with all our heart and with all our mind and with all our soul and with all our strength except as we honor and obey Jesus, the Only Begotten of the Father. In Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in complete line with the Living Word of God, we have everlasting life. This is in the fullness of what God has made ours by the manifestation of His so great love for us. He is Our God, the only Living and True and Glorious Lord God Almighty Who has created us to know Him. He so loved us that He sent forth His Only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him has everlasting life. True and eternal life is ours only in Christ Jesus as we are brought into the magnificent presence of our so wonderful and personal Lord God Almighty. So be it!
"Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is this morning’s passage, Deut 6:5. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Amen.