How to Love God with Your Mind

 

Matthew 22:37

           Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

“Love the Lord you God with all your mind,” he said.  Can you love with your mind?  I thought love was a heart action, or at least an emotional act.  Are you saying I can love you God with my mind?  You mean this mind that is thinking, planning, worrying, going a mile a minute can actually love you Lord?  How and when?  When is the big question because I am not sure my mind will ever just slow down and take a break from all this darn thinking.  I am tired of thinking, trying to figure everything out, trying to understand it all and how God’s plan fits it, and what is His plan, and when is it coming, and what do I do to prepare for His plan, and how do I make more money, and how does God want me to make more money, and why do things not look like they are working out for the good, and how should I do this and that, what should I have for lunch, should I run errand now or keep writing. 

thinking, thinking, thinking

I am tired of thinking but I also do not want to stop thinking either.  I don’t want my brain to stop working. 

I am seriously tired of thinking, especially worrying and then trying to trust God and not worry. 

Maybe this idea of loving with my mind could be the solution to slow down all this thinking mess.  Can I actually love you God with my mind and take a break from all this thinking?  I would enjoy a break.  My brain would enjoy a break.  I would enjoy some love in my brain and my thoughts.  In fact I would enjoy my heart taking a break from love and feeling, then let mind do some loving.  Yes, let’s give my heart a little time off from love, love, love, then heartache, maybe some hurt then back to love, love, love. 

My heart just jumped up and screamed, “Yes, yes please give me a vacation, even a short one is fine!”  It continued with, “Yes, yes, yes finally a good idea – rest!”  Well then heart since you seem thrilled with the idea, I am on board.  You deserve it.  You have been busy loving and sometimes hurting your whole life.  I guess a short break will be ok as long as you still keep God in you. 

Love the Lord your God with all your mind!  I am ready.  Stop all that continual thinking brain and let’s do some loving.  Let’s just love God.  I am ready right now, this very moment God.  Jesus said it is the greatest commandment.  So what now?  How?

Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Philippians 4:8 (Amplified)

For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them].

When you think about and fix your mind on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy – you love God because you are fixing your mind on Him.  God is true.  God is right.  God is pure.  God is lovely.  God is admirable.  God is excellent.  God is praise worthy.  So when you set your mind on these things, you set your mind on God.  To set your mind on God is to love God.  This is our start to loving the Lord our God with all our mind.

We can begin very simple with focusing on God is true and fixing our minds on that.  1 John 5:20 says, “He is the true God and eternal life.”  God is true.  He is the truth.  He is the absolute virtue of truth.  What is better than truth?  Really, I ask “what is better than truth in anything?”  There is not one tiny thing false about God.  Not one thing is a lie.  Is there anything about you that is not true?  Are you completely true in all your ways?  Of course not.  But God is true in every single way.  Think about that!  In every part of Him is truth.  I don’t know about you but I see God as made of many parts, more than any of us.  He is Almighty also.  Not one tiny part of Him is false.  It is all true!

We have someone that breathes truth only and is not capable of anything else but truth.  How can you not rejoice over that?  There is one who will never lie to you, deceive you, hide secrets from you, hold things from you or do anything false to you.  No false thing can come from God.  It is impossible. 

That is what you have!  That is your Father!  You have one not only made of love but also complete truth.  You belong to the truth.  You belong to one that will never lie to you.  This is amazing to me.  I have been deceived unfortunately more than my fair share.  This fact about God I have never really meditated on very much.  Thinking about it now gives me so much satisfaction.  Yes satisfaction.  I just feel satisfied now.  Remembering the many lies I have been told and secrets that betrayed me in the past – this one simple fact about God leaves me satisfied now.  I feel relieved.  I don’t care about the people that have hurt me through lies because my Father is incapable of ever deceiving me, telling me a lie or hiding the truth from me.  He is unable to do it.  Therefore I am satisfied.

I guess this week’s study is sounding more personal than most of the others.  I hope it in no way confuses God’s message to you on how to love Him with all your mind.  The message today is that we can love God with all our mind.  It is a matter of fixing our mind on Him and everything about Him.  That is why I love Philippians 4:8 to help us focus on the lovely parts of our God.  If you feel motivated move on to fixing your mind on and meditating on the other characteristics of God from Philippians 4:8.  I may just stick with keeping my mind set on the fact God is true and relish in that.