The Greatest Commandment - Loving God with all our 1) heart, 2) soul, and 3) strength

I want to love God sincerely from my heart (truly from centrally within, lebab, and not just outwardly), infatuated with God in emotions and feelings like when I fell in love with my soul (nephesh), love Him sanely and with my intent and understanding (dianoia) and love Him with my might and strength in doing things for him with gusto (meod/ischus). The challenge is ALL of each.

Mark 12:30-31 (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. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

From here we can see that there are two great commandments namely: loving God and loving thy neighbour.

Romans 13:9-10 (KJV) For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Then according to Paul, loving thy neighbour is obeying the 5 half of the 10 commandments. If so, then when Jesus said to love God in 4 parts with all you heart, soul, mind and strength, what He really meant is obeying the first 4 of the 10 commandments. Because when you think about it, the first 4 commandments refers to God, and Jesus said that the greatest commandment is loving God. 4 parts = 4 commandments = perfect fit

Loving God with all your:

heart

Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

soul

Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image... but rather "worship God in spirit" (John 4:24)

mind

Exodus 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain but rather "study to shew thyself approved unto God" (2 Timothy 2:15) and "renew your minds" (Romans 12:2)

strength

Exodus 20:8-10 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work

I learned from the Bible through this course:http://thesimpleanswers.com/2011/10/05/you-need-to-sign-up-for-the-free-bible-correspondence-course-by-mail/

The theory makes sense provided elsewhere here that Christ included two translations combining Septuagint's translation of a Greek word connoting "mind" as a more direct gloss for the actual hebrew word... However, under this theory from an OT professor "mind" would be better as being included as part of "soul" in these overlapping contexts to justify even moreso the author of Christ's words (or Christ himself literally likely in Aramaic) using the terms both "soul, mind, and strength" as inspired interpretations of "soul and strength" from Hebrew. Mind is part of one's whole being. Read it for an interesting view of "strength" relating to our resources, "soul" relating to the whole being (which includes the mind) which all starts and begins with the heart, our affections and loves at the center of our being from which all else springs.

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/love-god-with-your-everything

You could try and break it down, i.e. soul = makes Godly choices, heart = serving God with emotional commitment, strength = using your actual body to serve God and mind = using your intelligence govern your actions.

However, the Scriptures don't support any such breakdown as far as I'm aware and I think both in Deuteronomy and when Jesus said it, the intention was merely that you devote the WHOLE of yourself to God, whether it is your thinking, your sentiment or your physical activity. Note that he could've gone further saying: loving God with your eyes (only seeing what is appropriate and good), loving God with your mouth (only speaking what is holy and encouraging), etc., but you already get the idea that it's included under this broad instruction.