Love the Lord with All Your Mind
Loving the Lord
With all My Mind
Luke 10:27 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.''"
Our minds can go all over the place
Recent studies at UBC have shown
that students daydream 20% of the time
- other studies in South Carolina show upwards of 30%.
Other recent studies have linked daydreaming to rise in Alsheimers.
The study, which appears in The Journal of Neuroscience, suggests that the normal brain activity of daydreaming could trigger a life-long process that ends in Alzheimer's disease in some people.
It found the evidence of Alzheimer's disease mostly appear in the brain's "default state" areas that are involved in musing or daydreaming.
"We appear to use memory
systems often in our default states. This may help us to plan and solve
problems. Maybe it helps us be creative. But it may also have metabolic
consequences," said lead author Randy Buckner, a Howard Hughes
Medical Institute investigator at Washington University in St. Louis.
Why should I love the Lord God with all my mind? Because it is the best and healthiest way for you to live.
What kinds of thoughts occupy your mind? Where does your mind find rest? Or where does it run to when it has a chance? Do you think more about work or recreation than about your spiritual growth or your relationship with Jesus? Are you often filled with unclean thoughts? Are you plagued with fearful or angry thoughts?
Colossians 3:2
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Is this apart of your life? Is your heart finding rest in the things above or is your mind consumed by temporal things?
Luke 10:27 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.''"
What do you get excited about... work,
sports, hockey, recreation, God's Kingdom? To whom or to what
do you devote the majority of your thoughts and energies?
If many of your thoughts are undisciplined or earth-centered, begin confessing them to God and ask him to begin to transform and restore your thought life.
Psalms 1:2
...Blessed is the man that ... his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
Studies on meditation are beginning to show that regular meditation can thicken the parts of the cerebral cortex that aid in decision-making, concentration, and memory.
Based on scripture, it is God's will that every believer saturate his or her mind with God's will, ways and words. This does not happen by accident but by choice - it is an act of our own will, a daily choice to hide his word in our lives, to choose to know him and his ways.
Is it your habit to seriously read
and study God's Word daily? Do you meditate on key passages,
do you memorize it, or does God's word have little place in your thoughts?
John 15:7
If you remain in me and my words
remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
Why do I need to gain contol over my thoughts and Love God with all my mind?
- Because it affects every area of our lives
- Life or death is determined by our thought life
- Thoughts are words sown into our hearts, they affect our lives physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually
Matthew 12:33-35
33 "Make a tree good and its
fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for
a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers,
how can you who are evil say anything good?
Diagram how this works.
Mind - everything starts here
- "I think therefore I am"
- Breading ground of future action
- Do what makes sense / no sense no action
- Open door to the heart
- Out of the abundance of the heart comes the words and actions of a person. I don't think any honest person would dispute this fact.
Our minds are the breeding ground of future action.
As we bring our thought life into line with God's will we shall discover the power to walk in and understand His purpose for our life's more clearly. Romans puts it this way
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what [is] that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (NKJV)
- Understanding our thought life
Thoughts are very powerful. They seem to just drop into our minds or arise from within us.
The television presents a good illustration.
When a television station sends out signals they are received and decoded by our television sets. The decoded signals are then used to paint a picture on our television screen. We sit back and watch the picture.
Colour televisions use three electron beams to paint the pictures on our screens. These beams called, red, green and blue, combine to create all the different colours will see.
Interestingly, our minds also receive all the thoughts and ideals from three sources. God, man and satan.
Consider thoughts as beams, which our mind has the ability to decode.
Thoughts come from Four sources
- World - system, values, attitudes, perceptions education, influential inputs (music, movies, internet, tv, reading, family, friends)
The world would like to tell you how to think, and feel about yourself, God, life, others, friends.
Col. 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
- Ourselves ~ experiences, imagination, attitudes
1 Chronicles 28:9
"And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.
Our thoughts can be good or bad. What you hear, see and do affects
your thought life. Meditating on God's word produces godly thoughts.
Studying secular and human literature can also provide us with inspiration
and good ideals. There is nothing wrong in this.
The reality is that God gave mankind a wonderful brain. When we put our intellect to use we can all receive inspiration and ideals. The good ideals can ultimately be traced back to God.
Even people that do know believe in the existence of God benefit from such inspiration.
- From God ~ Word, Revelation, Application, Prayer
John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
The Bible is full of accounts of God speaking to people. What they heard were godly thoughts.
We are all made in the image of God and have the ability to receive thoughts that come from God. Many times we do not recognize the thoughts and ideals that God places in our minds. Or do not take them seriously
Do you know God's voice - do you recognize him. Jesus said in John 10:4 ...his sheep follow him because they know his voice.
As we begin to renew our minds we shall find ourselves better placed to discern godly thoughts.
- From satan ~ evil
influences, lies, injustice, prejudices, selfishness
- 2 Corinthians 10:5, 1 Chronicles 21:1-2, John 13:2,
Acts 5:1-3,
1Tim. 4:1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Cain, Saul and Judas all meditated on evil thoughts and were influenced by satan.
John 13:2 And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's [son,] to betray Him, (NKJV)
Satan knows our minds are often his playground. We can be influenced by him
An understanding of this alone should help you to set your will in line with God's and resist those ungodly thoughts.
Of course we need more than will power to renew our mind but without our will power nothing else can help us.
We need to renew or minds because an un-renewed mind will result in an ungodly action.
This leads us to the second reason why we need to Love the Lord with all our minds:
2. Know Him better and
discover and live God's will for our life
- Romans 12:1-3, Colossians 3: 1-3
Renewing our minds is vital to understanding the will of God
Ignorance is not bliss -
Ephesians 4:17-24
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
Ignorance and a mind not renewed by the Word of God leaves us devoid
of the power of God.
You can speak in tongues all day long and give 90% of your income to the Lord, but without knowing the will of God you will never be fruitful in serving Him.
There are thousands of believers walking around in almost total defeat with little evidence of a restored life because they have never gained control over their thoughts
Jesus restores our thoughts as we bring every thought captive to Him
2 Corinthians 10:5-6
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
Captive -
Prisoner of War - freedom is taken away
Stopped - not allowed to proceed in freedom
Controlled - not managed
He restores our thoughts by guarding our minds, His spirit identifying the choices we have to make to
Act of our will - a choice, to place Jesus as the filter of our minds
How do we do this?
- Use filters - Jesus becomes the filter that everything goes through
- Hebrews 3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.
- Nothing gets in our minds without going through Jesus
- Don't trust yourself
- Proverbs 26:12
Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Your most dangerous companion is your own thoughts
Always verify with reality - God's word & others
Find a loving accountability partner and place your trust in them
- Don't Feed the Beast - starve it
- What we feed grows
- Nash - no longer listen to the other voices
- 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22 Avoid every kind of evil.
- Learn to control your thoughts
- know the triggers
- Philippians 4:8-9 Finally, brothers, 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. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Recognize your thoughts may dog you forever - Put your thoughts on the sidelines before they put you on the sidelines
Discipline - continually keep the filter in place, no work arounds, no exceptions
He will help us - but it will always be a challenge, to be a conscious choice to put him above all other things.
Be committed to letting him restore your life. If he doesn't begin by restoring your mind - renewing it you will never experience the will and life He has for you.