Mark 12:30 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… I will tell you another thing. Many years ago, there lived a schoolmaster in the Netherlands. It was at the time that a very wicked persecution was going on against the Protestants, when they had "The Inquisition." It was a very cruel thing. The inquisitors, as they were called, put this poor man to the torture of the rack. They pulled his limbs almost asunder. This rack was a horrible instrument! have you ever seen one? You may see them in some museums. These inquisitors put men on the rack, and then pulled their joints out, thus putting them to horrible pain! When on the rack, the inquisitor said to this poor schoolmaster, "Do you love your wife and children? Won't you, for the sake of your wife and children, give up this religion of yours? Won't you give it up?" The poor old schoolmaster said, "If this earth were all gold, if all the stars were pearls, and if that golden globe and those pearly stars were all mine, I would give them all up to have my wife and children with me. I would rather stay in this prison, and live on bread and water with my wife and children, than live like a king without them. But I will not for the sake of pearls, or gold, or wife, or children, give up my religion, for I love my God more than wife, or child, or gold, or pearls." But the inquisitors' hearts did not soften a bit; they went on inflicting more tortures, till the man died on the rack. He loved God with "all his mind, and soul, and heart, and strength." Do you think we could go to the death for Him? If we love Him, we shall every day do something for Him. What have you done this day to show your love to God? (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. |
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