Love God With All Your Soul: Feeding the Deepest Part of You

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). Last time we looked at the heart and our emotions. This time: the soul.

The soul is the hardest of the four to pin down. That’s partly because the Bible uses the word in more than one way.

What the Bible means by “soul”

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word nephesh often just means life, or you. The whole living person. When Moses says to love God with all your soul, he means with your whole life, down to your last breath. Jewish teachers read it as “even if He takes your life,” which is why martyrs have quoted it on the way to their deaths.

But the Bible also uses “soul” for the deepest part of a man, the part that is made to know God and can’t rest without Him. Paul prays that our “whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Jesus asks, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

That’s the part of the soul we’re after here. Your spirit. The inner man. The part of you that was made for communion with God and gets thirsty when it’s cut off.

The soul gets thirsty

Listen to how the psalmists talk about their souls:

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1-2)

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1)

Thirst is the right picture. Your soul has a need, and it will try to meet it with something. If it doesn’t drink from God, it will drink from whatever is closest: work, approval, entertainment, a drink, a screen, a fantasy. None of them hold water for long.

Augustine, the fourth-century bishop, opened his Confessions with a prayer that has been quoted ever since: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” That restlessness is the soul’s thirst. It’s not a sign something is broken in you. It’s a sign of what you were built for.

What loving God with your soul looks like

If the heart is where you feel toward God, the soul is where you meet Him. Loving God with your soul means making room, on purpose, to be with Him. Not to get something done for Him. To be with Him.

That’s hard for doers. I’m a doer. I’d rather fix a car for God than sit quietly with God. But Jesus said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). There’s no shortcut around the spirit.

It’s also the part of us most easily starved by a busy life. A man can be productive, moral, and even busy in ministry while his soul is running on fumes. That’s how a lot of pastors burn out. The work was for God. The soul hadn’t been fed by God in months.

Jesus’ invitation is for exactly that man: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

John Piper sums up why this matters so much: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Your soul’s satisfaction in God isn’t selfish. It’s worship.

Nine ways to love God with your soul

1. Start the day with God before the phone. Even five minutes. Read a short passage and pray before you check email, news, or texts. Whoever gets the first word in the morning tends to set the tone for the day.

2. Practice silence. Set a timer for three minutes. Sit still. Say, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening,” and then actually listen. Your mind will wander. Bring it back. That’s the practice.

3. Pray the Lord’s Prayer slowly. Take one line at a time and stay with it. Jesus didn’t give us that prayer to rattle off. He gave it as a path to walk.

4. Keep a Sabbath. One day a week to stop producing and rest in God. Worship with your church, eat a long meal, take a walk, nap. The Sabbath tells your soul that the world doesn’t depend on you.

5. Take a “breath prayer” into your day. A short prayer you can pray in one breath, like “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me,” or “My soul thirsts for you.” Pray it at red lights, before meetings, while the coffee brews.

6. Bless the Lord out loud. David talked to his own soul: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:1-2). Preach to yourself. Remind your soul who God is.

7. Get outside. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). Go look at them. A walk in the woods, a sunrise from the porch, a night under the stars. Creation quiets a cluttered soul.

8. Take Communion seriously. At the Lord’s Table, the soul is fed by Christ Himself. Come prepared, confess sin, and receive it as a meal, not a ritual.

9. Take a half-day retreat once a season. Four hours, a Bible, a notebook, and no agenda but God. Ask Him, “Where have I been running on empty?” Write down what comes.

Rest, not more work

If you read that list and felt more tired, slow down. The soul isn’t fed by adding nine more things to an exhausted week. It’s fed by coming to Jesus and resting.

David described the goal this way: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2). Not a frantic soul. A quiet one.

Pick one. If you’re in Agōn, it might be your Soul discipline this season. Then let God do what only He can do: satisfy the thirst He put there.

Next in this series: loving God with all your mind.