How to Love God With All Your Mind
Mark 12:30 "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 renewed mind plays a vital role in loving Jesus. The Lord said that if we are to ever understand the Kingdom, our minds need to be constantly renewed (Matt. 4:17). In Romans 12:2, Paul states that a major part of being transformed into the image and likeness of Jesus requires our minds to be renewed. It's a big deal.
Let's look at the mind. The language of the mind is images. Often, our mind is an ongoing movie screen that provides endless pictures and words. We find ourselves constantly seeing images being played for us or holding a conversation in our mind, sometimes all at the same time. So much of our life is lived in our minds.
The Lord created us this way for constant communion with Him. It is the continual reality and stream of our life. When our body sleeps, our mind stays active, dreaming through the night.
To love God with all our mind is a supernatural possibility. Though the mind is never meant to rule the heart, it can be used to love the Lord affectionately. The Holy Spirit releases supernatural activity to love Jesus more as our mind is renewed.
Here are four unique ways to love the Lord with our minds.
1. Reason
Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD:"
To reason is to think, understand and form judgments through logic. For guys like me, this is a relief. I enjoy strategic thinking and order. God has given this as a gift.
I must note, though, that reason should never trump revelation. The mind is the learner, not the leader. The heart is the leader. The heart often receives from the Lord first, and the mind cannot make sense of it, at least initially. Eventually, the mind catches up with what the heart received.
We have a God made in our own image and likeness when we prize reason over revelation. Faith, in many ways, goes beyond reason. It looks to the impossible and trusts in the All-Knowing God.
Yet reason is powerful. We can systematically and logically look at the ways God has intersected our lives and give Him praise.
2. Knowledge
Heb. 10:16 "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds."
To love God with all our mind involves taking time to fill our mind with God's Word and to agree with who He is. When we grow in truth, we gain knowledge.
A. W. Tozer once said,
"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."
When we come into agreement with God, it awakens love in us. Love itself includes great depths of knowledge. Loving God is continually refueled when the mind encounters truth over and over.
Jesus is the Truth. Knowing truth and loving God are deeply connected. As our mind grows in the knowledge of Jesus, we are liberated to love Him more.
3. Memory
Isaiah 63:7 "I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us."
The Bible is filled with commands to remember. Memories lead to gratefulness and worship. We love God with our remembrance. When we use our minds to remember His kindness, faithfulness, patience, peace, etc., we build a foundation of faith, hope, and love.
For some, we cannot forget the adverse events of the past because the past has a voice. We must triumph over it with truth. Don't allow your past to freeze you; instead, let it lead you into the depths of God's love. Our thinking about the past can affect us positively by remembering the truth about God's goodness toward us in forgiving, delivering, and providing for us.
4. Imagination
Psa. 8:3 "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have ordained."
Isa. 55:8 "My thoughts are completely different from yours," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine."
God has given the mind the power to imagine. Some call it dreaming big dreams. Some say get a "picture" of your future, while others say if you can see it, you can be it. Imagination sees, creates, and thinks outside the box.
In our imagination, heavens thoughts can come to us and be captured. With our imagination, we can extend our knowledge to explore our possibilities in God in all areas of our lives. This releases love that is anchored in faith.
We have the mind of Christ. Let's love Him with it!
Phil. 4:8 "And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable, and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."
Your Turn: Why do you think Jesus made sure the mind was a big part of loving and keeping our affections on Him?
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