Tuesday, February 2, 2016

February 3, 2016

"He answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:27

So, you think you love God?

Do you love Him with ALL your heart?

Until you love him with all your heart you don’t love Him in a way that will please Him OR you.

Do you love Him with ALL your soul?

Until you love Him at the core of your being you don’t love Him in a way that will satisfy Him Or you.

Do you love Him with ALL your strength?

Until you devote everything you possess toward loving Him you won’t love Him in a way that will honor Him you won’t know His love.

And, do you love Him with ALL your mind?

Pastor Greg Simas offers four unique ways to love the Lord with our minds.

“1. REASON

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:”

To reason is to think, understand and form judgments by a process of logic. I believe that part of loving God with all our mind is loving him logically. 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. Many times the heart 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.

When we prize reason over revelation we have a God made in our own image and likeness. 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

Hebrews 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 rightly 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.

Knowing truth and loving God are deeply connected. Jesus is the Truth. 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. When we use our minds to remember His kindness, faithfulness, patience, peace etc. we build a foundation of faith, hope and love. We are loving God with our remembrance.

For some, we cannot forget the negative 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 but rather 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

Psalms 8:3 “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;”

Isaiah 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 actually can extend our knowledge to explore the possibilities we have in God in all areas of our lives. This releases love which is anchored in faith.

Wow! These four truths give new significance to these verses:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.Romans 12:1-2

A renewed mind loves God!

Do you love God with ALL your mind or do you need to be RE-minded?





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