You are as close to God, as you choose to be.

Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, All your soul, and ALL your mind, speaks of a whole hearted love, an undivided love, an uncompromised love, a characteristic of total commitment to our God. It means He comes first, it’s about, that where it is possible and up to you, and your choices and decisions in regards to life, that God and His kingdom comes first…
in ALL things, heart, soul and mind..body,
time, events, activities, ideas, …..so whatever you are thinking (mind) God is first,
whatever claims your devotion (Heart) in that God comes first,
that whatever is going on in the depths of your character and being (soul) That God is in charge down there.

What then does it all look like and how does that kind of commandment demonstrate itself in our living..?

I believe it does in our choices and what we do each day… this is about purpose.

Often we find ourselves divided in this, with a half-hearted devotion or a divided mindset about what God requires from us or not… it is clear what the first 2 commands or instructions are for our lives… love God first…love other people second…

Some people make choices based on the other half and not specifically on what God requires of us..so we find ourselves taking other options than maybe what God is asking/instructing.
Some people even find themselves choosing the second commandment before the first one…
Our God is a jealous God (exodus chapter 20:5) and asks of us our first devotion our “first’s” in each day…

Think about it:
1st time in the day given to him.
1st tithe (10%) of our money given to His work(in our local church).
1st love for Him,

Over these past weeks we have been thinking about purpose, our role on earth, in our church... Gods plan for us as a church, which is all about purpose and also vision, our preferred future…

I think it is interesting to note how Jesus, and what Jesus said that day…

1st Commandment is love God
2nd Commandment (instruction, mandate) is love your neighbour as yourself…

What that means is, secondary to our devotion to God, …..is our devotion to others as we would love our very own life…

Most of us care a bit about ourselves, for most, we try to take care of ourselves, eat the right foods, do a bit of exercise to care for our body, we clean ourselves and some try to improve our minds…
well Jesus said that day, that how we love ourselves, the way we take care of ourselves (which in fact is self love) is the same way we are to love other people…

In Rick Warrens Book, the Purpose Driven Life, he speaks of a number of issues relating to our journey as Christians, the key for us at the moment is that we are as close to God as we choose to be...I think it's worth noting and applying to our lives and ensuring that we each are journeying closer to Him everyday. why ? because we love Him with everything we have got.