Living with All My Heart

I’m excited to announce that my friend Kati and I recently published a new children’s book!

https://gracepossible.com/product/all-my-heart-ebook/

The idea for this book came after I’d been reading in the Psalms, and I noticed the same phrase used often.

 

“I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart….” (Psalm 9:1)

“I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart….” (Psalm 86:12)

“I seek you with all my heart….” (Psalm 119:10)

“Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law and obey it with all my heart.” (Psalm 119:34)

I started thinking about this idea of living with “all my heart.” Of course, I want to live that way! Of course, I can’t do it. 

When questioned, Jesus answered that the greatest commandment in the law is to love God with all your heart (and all your soul, mind, and strength). (Mark 12:30) However, Jesus didn’t say, “So, go do it.” Jesus knew that as sinful human beings, it’s impossible for us to keep this commandment. If we could love God with all our heart, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to come as our Savior. Praise God, Jesus did come and He fulfilled the law. He loved God and He loved others perfectly.

 

Now, since we do have Him as our Savior, and we do have the Holy Spirit living in us, we can grow in this way of living wholeheartedly day by day, (though still imperfectly). I think the key to this kind of life is explained in 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.”

 

God’s love for me is perfect. It is unlimited. It is powerful. It is eternal.

 

The more I understand and experience God’s love for me, the more my heart responds with love for Him, and the more I live out of love instead of selfishness or self-reliance. Understanding God’s love for me more and more leads me to loving God more and more. It leads to living more with “all my heart.” That’s how I want to live. 

 

We hope that our new book encourages children and helps them understand this simple truth – that they can live each day with all their heart, as the last line of the book says,

“Because my heavenly Father loves me always with all His heart.”