Resource Detail

2026 New Year Message

LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD

Deuteronomy 6:1-12

Key Verse: 6:5

1. Where are the Israelites physically located at this point in Deuteronomy (Deut 1:1–5)? List the repeated words or ideas you observe in verses 1-3. What does it mean to “fear the Lord” in this context (2)? Why does Moses emphasize teaching these commands before entering the promised land?
2. How does verse 4 begin, and what kind of response does it call for? What does it mean that “the Lord is one” in Israel’s historical and religious context (4)? What kind of love is being commanded in verse 5? Which area—heart, soul, or strength—do you find hardest to love god with?
3. What does it mean for God’s words to be “on your heart” (6)? What specific actions are mentioned in verses 7-9? How do these instructions turn everyday life into a setting for spiritual formation?
4. Why does Moses warn the people after describing abundance (10-12)? What does “forgetting the Lord” look like in practical terms? What is one practical way you can respond this year to the command to love the Lord fully?

2026 New Year Message Juan Seo (Jan 4, 2026)

LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

Happy New Year! As we begin a new year, have you found a Bible verse that will guide your life throughout this year? We often call this the key verse for the year. Out of curiosity, I looked into which Bible verses people in the United States searched for the most last year. These were some of the verses that came up. Isaiah 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” These Bible verses are very encouraging and give us hope. I love these verses. But I was a little surprised that Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength,” was not among those popular verses. I started to think about why that might be. Maybe it feels so direct that some people don’t feel comfortable with this verse. But this verse goes to the heart of our faith, so we can never emphasize it too much. When Jesus was asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” he pointed directly to this command: “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31). That’s why choosing Deuteronomy 6:5 as our key verse for this year is deeply meaningful. As we begin 2026, we want to know what it truly means to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength.

Please look at verse 4. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” It begins with this call: “Hear, O Israel.” This is a call for God’s people to pay close attention to God’s word. The Hebrew word for “hear” is Shema. That’s why this passage is called the Shema Israel, the Shema Prayer, or the Shema Text. You have probably heard the word Shema before, right? Shema means more than just hearing. It means listening carefully, with your full attention, and responding with obedience. It carries the idea of whole-hearted commitment. So when God says, “Hear,” he’s really saying, “Listen carefully—and live this out.”

Then comes this statement: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Here, “the Lord” refers to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Out of reverence, the Israelites did not pronounce God’s name. Instead, they said Adonai, which means “Lord.” In Hebrew, this line is: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad. Eloheinu means “our God,” and echad means “one.” “The Lord is one” means that God alone is God. He is the only Creator of heaven and earth. He is sovereign over the universe and over every part of our lives. This statement clearly affirms monotheism—belief in one God—and rejects the worship of many gods, which is polytheism. Some people ask whether Christians, by believing in the Trinity, are believing in three gods. But that question comes from a misunderstanding of the Trinity. As Christians, when we talk about the Trinity, we’re not talking about three gods. We believe in one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Different persons, but one divine essence. In that sense, Christianity clearly proclaims one God.

This declaration—“the Lord is one”—is an essential Christian truth for us today, especially as people living in a pluralistic society. We live in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the world. People of many different religions and beliefs live side by side here. Because of that, we are called to respect people of other faiths and to live with wisdom and humility in this shared space. On January 1st of this year, during the New York City mayor’s inauguration, the oath was taken with a hand placed on the Quran instead of the Bible. That was something new in the city’s history. Moments like this often remind us how complex faith can be in a pluralistic society. But living in a pluralistic society means we need to know how to respond wisely. Respecting people of other faiths does not mean accepting their beliefs as our own. We must never lose hold of this truth: the God we believe in is the one true and absolute God. There is no other like him. And it’s on this foundation that we are called to live out God’s love in the world. As we love others faithfully and humbly, we proclaim that God is love and He is the only God. So let’s hold on firmly to this confession: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Let’s read verse 5 together: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Do you know what our church’s keyword for this year is? Yes—it’s love. Starting next week, we’ll be studying the book of Hosea, a book of love in the Old Testament. After that, we’ll move into 1 John, a letter about love in the New Testament. Love—what a beautiful word. What a powerful word. If you are deeply in love right now, love probably feels very real to you. Your heart feels light, excited—maybe even like you’re on cloud nine. Above all, we must remember this: God is love. We’ll explore this more deeply when we study 1 John, but when the Bible says “God is love,” it doesn’t mean that love is just one of God’s qualities. It means that love is God’s very nature. God doesn’t just have love—God is love. That’s why love may be the most beautiful word in the world. So, don’t think that choosing “love” as our keyword for this year is too common or familiar.

Before we go further, I want us to take a closer look at the word ‘love.’ In Hebrew, there are a couple of important words for love. One is chesed ( חֶסֶד ) [ḥé·sed], which refers to covenant love. It’s often translated as mercy, loving kindness, steadfast love, or faithfulness. This word is used especially to describe the covenant relationship between God and Israel. It points to God’s loyal, faithful, unchanging love. In Hosea 6:6, this word chesed appears. In the NIV, that verse is translated, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” But in the NRSV, it’s translated, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.” That phrase “steadfast love” captures the meaning of chesed. Even when Israel repeatedly failed and sinned, God remained faithful to his covenant. Chesed is the love that does not give up. It’s not a perfect match, but for the sake of understanding, we can think of chesed as closely related to what the New Testament describes with the Greek word agapē—God’s faithful, self-giving love.

The other is ahavah (אַהֲבָה) [a·ha·VÁH], and its verb form is ahav. This is a more general word for love. It can describe emotional love, but it can also describe love as a choice and a commitment. It’s used for romantic love, family love, friendship, love for one’s neighbor, and even love for God. In Deuteronomy 6:5, ahav is the word that’s used. God’s chesed love—the faithful love he shows to his people—calls for a response. And that response is ahavah, love from God’s people back to God.

But the love commanded in Deuteronomy 6:5 is a whole-person love—a love that involves the heart, the will, and the entire life. In Deuteronomy 6:5, the verb ahav appears in the form of a command. It’s often translated, “You shall love.” In other words, loving God is presented as a command. Now, how do we hear that? We don’t want to be forced to love, right? We may think, How can love be commanded? We usually say, Love is something you feel. Our culture often understands love mainly as an emotion. But that’s not how the Bible understands love. Love in the Bible certainly includes emotions, but it’s much more than that. It also includes choice, will, commitment, obedience, and faithfulness. If we reduce love to feelings alone, this command feels uncomfortable. But if we understand love as something we choose and live out, then this command becomes something we can obey. Think about real life. There are moments when loving someone is hard—for example, when our parents have caused us deep wounds. Yet, many people choose to love their parents simply because they are their parents. As they grow older, that love may be expressed through sacrifice, patience, and care. That’s not driven by emotion alone—it’s a decision. The same is true when we love our neighbors. Sometimes we feel deep compassion and naturally want to help. But other times, even when we don’t feel strong emotions, we still recognize someone’s need and choose to act in love. We see this clearly in the book of Hosea. The prophet Hosea is commanded by God to marry a promiscuous woman. He doesn’t do this because of romantic feelings. He does it in obedience to God. He chooses to love because God commands him to love. That’s the kind of love Deuteronomy 6:5 is talking about—not just a feeling, but a whole-life response of obedience, commitment, and faithfulness to God.

So we can receive God’s call to love him as a command—and we can obey it. But then the question becomes: how much are we called to love God? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Notice that the phrase “with all your” is repeated three times. That repetition is intentional and meant for emphasis. What does it mean to love God with all your heart? The heart is the center of life. In Hebrew thought, the heart includes emotion, mind, and will. So loving God with all your heart means loving him with your whole inner life—your decisions, your desires, your motives, and your intentions. Next, with all your soul. The Hebrew word here is nephesh, which refers to life itself—the self, the whole person, including our desires and longings. So loving God with all your soul means loving God with your whole life and with your very self. And then there’s with all your strength. Interestingly, in Hebrew, this word is not a noun but an adverb. It means loving God fully and completely. Loving God with all your strength includes our energy, our effort, our time, our abilities, and even our possessions. It means loving God with all our resources—with everything God has entrusted to us. So this command is a call to love God with our whole inner life, our whole being, and our whole capacity. The Hebrews viewed the human person as a whole. They thought in holistic terms. So when we interpret this verse, it’s actually more helpful to read it in a holistic way. In that sense, this command can be summarized simply as: love the Lord your God wholeheartedly. It includes everything—our inner life and our outward actions, our thoughts and our behavior, our beliefs and the way we live every day.

So why are we called to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength? There are several reasons, but let me highlight two.

First, we love God wholeheartedly because God is our Creator. We come from him. We were created by him, and we were created with a purpose. That purpose was to love God and to live in his love forever. Loving God wholeheartedly is not optional—it’s the very reason we exist. It’s how we were designed. That’s why we only experience true joy and fulfillment when we love God fully and live in his love. St. Augustine once said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Many people try to rest in human love, wealth, success, power, or recognition. But no matter how hard they try, they remain restless until they meet God. That’s why we are called to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength.

Second, we love God because God loved us first. As we’ll learn when we study 1 John, God is love, and love comes from God. We did not love God first. We love because God first loved us. God loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. God demonstrated his love for us when Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Through that love, we were saved and received a new life. So our love for God is not forced. It is a voluntary response. We love because we have been loved by God so deeply.

Then, what does it actually look like to love God wholeheartedly? We express our love for God in many ways. We love God by loving his word—by reading it, remembering it, and obeying it. We love God by turning away from sin and choosing to live for his glory. We love God through worship—by gathering to praise him and honor him. We love God by offering our time, our energy, our abilities, and our resources for his work. And we also love God by obeying the second command Jesus taught us: to love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving God and loving our neighbor are two sides of the same coin. As 1 John reminds us, whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. Our love for God must be manifested in loving our neighbor. That means sharing the gospel with those who need to hear it. It means offering real, practical help to those in need. When we love our brothers and sisters, when we love our neighbors, we are loving God. That is what it means to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength.

At our Christmas service, we took a special offering to support brothers and sisters in Latin America who are facing serious economic hardship. I want to sincerely thank you for your generosity and your heartfelt giving. In total, about $10,000 was collected, and more than $6,000 of that came from New York UBF alone. Because of that, we were able to meaningfully support families in Latin America who truly needed help. I believe this is a real and tangible expression of loving God. I pray that we will experience God’s love deeply this year—and that we will practice God’s love in words and deeds through our lives. Amen.