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: this is the first (most important) commandment Mark 12:30
Last time we talked about loving the Lord with all our hearts and loving Him with all our souls. Today I want to hit on loving Him with all our mind and strength.
“With all your mind.” When our minds, wills, and emotions wander from devotion to God, be careful. Our minds are so adept at hoodwinking ourselves with logic-plays that seem so air tight but miss the truth by miles.
As we saw last time, our relationship with God deepens as we spend time in communion with Him. But if we forsake this communion, our understanding of our true condition before God will grow dull, and often our minds will be the last to realize it. Our spirits are glum, we’re bored, we’re tread-milling through life and our minds are telling us that we’re OK, or that all we need is more discipline, a better job, an on-fire church… After all, maybe it’s normal to be bored in the Lord. Our minds rationalize right into a lost first-love and we never even know.
As God’s children, His friends, and His bride (Matt 5:44-45, Jam 2:23, Jn 15:15, and Rev 21:9), it is critical that we see our relationship with Him clearly. (James 4:7-8.) And this involves loving Him with our minds. The scales fall off our brains and we see where we have fallen from. Jesus says: “Consider how far you have fallen!” (Rev 2:5). That means THINK about it. Use your brain. Take off the rose-color glasses and take a long hard look at yourself.
That’s why we need to “love the Lord (our) God with all (our). . . mind . . .” (Mark 12:30) Because without out our minds in love with Jesus we will not know the true state of things.
“With all your strength” Paul pleads with us to present our bodies as living sacrifices—sacrifices which are holy (Rom 12:1). This is where loving “the Lord your God with all your…strength” (Mark 12:30) comes in. This doesn’t mean discipline. It means availability, discerning His will in all things and walking in it. God will lead us “in the paths of righteousness” (Ps 23:3). His grace is sufficient to rescue us from every temptation, situation and state of affairs. (I Cor 10:13.)
Jesus treated the people around Him as His Father would treat them. That’s because He only did what He saw His Father doing (Jn 15:19). When we follow Jesus’ example, it allows us to treat others as Jesus would treat them. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). “Love one another” is not just an over-used truism or a trite saying; it is nature of Jesus within us that we are enabled to fulfill by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.