The mind is a powerful organ in the human body. The mind is the set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thoughts, imagination, memory, will and sensation. They are responsible for various mental phenomena, like perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention and emotion. Important distinctions group them together according to whether they are sensory, propositional, intentional, conscious or occurrent. Minds were traditionally understood as substances but it is more common in the contemporary perspective to conceive them as properties or capacities possessed by humans.
Loving the Lord your God requires you to love Him with all of your mind. Loving God requires all of your thoughts, your imagination, your memory, your will and your sensations.
Our thoughts are very powerful aspects of our mind. Our thoughts unlike other emotions are impossible to see. It is very easy to pretend to love God when in actual fact your thoughts have no relation to God and your love for Him. Thoughts are unseen to people but the Lord knows your deepest thoughts. In Psalm 139:1-2 AMPC David writes;
“O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me. You know my down-sitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off.
This scripture should make us fear The Lord and have proper respect and reverence for Him. God judges the intents of the heart and the thoughts of our minds.
In Matthew 9:4 AMPC The Lord demonstrated this clearly;
“But Jesus, knowing (seeing) their thoughts, said, Why do you think evil and harbor malice in your hearts?”
We cannot claim to love God if the substance of our thoughts are not what he expects. We are driven by so many thoughts daily and quite often we are consumed by many thoughts other than God. Many think about God only when they are in church, sometimes only for a few minutes because we are distracted by other things even in church.
We cannot love God with an unfocused mind. Loving God requires that we retain God in our thoughts because anything short of this is not acceptable to the King of kings.
We cannot mock God by pretending we love Him. There is a danger to not loving God in the required way. To love God requires us to retain the knowledge of him in our hearts and thoughts. God gave a testimony about Abraham that he can command his house after the Lord God. This requires the retention of the knowledge of God and a transfer of that knowledge to the generations after.
The danger to not loving the Lord with all your mind is that God Himself will deal with you. In Romans 1:28-31 NKJV, the Bible says;
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; “being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;”
In Romans 1:21 Bible says;
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
The list goes on and on. Bottom line is God will have no pleasure in you if you do not honour and love Him . Your thoughts drive your interests, hence we must retain the knowledge of God in our thoughts. Let us now look at the other faculty of the mind called imagination and what its role is in loving the Lord.
Our imagination is the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. Growing up as a little boy, I often looked at creations and wondered how were these made? I would look at the sky and think how did God make these clouds? How did he make it to be able to hold rain? How did he make the sun to shine so bright? How did he make water? How did He make trees and birds? These thoughts would consume me for hours. It would cause me to start imagining how God designed and made these things. Very often when my imaginations were not satisfying my curiosity, I would ask my elderly cousin Soma how these things came to being. I remember on one occasion Soma told me, Kwesi your brain is too small to understand how God created these things and just accept that they are here.
Having grown up, I know how God created all things in the scriptures. With the exception of Adam and Eve, all things came to being though words. God is a super architect because if you look at all that He has created, and consider the intricacy and complexity of His handiwork you can only stand in awe of Him. The first time I was on a flight to London, I booked a window seat on a KLM flight and my purpose was to look at and admire the expanse of God’s creation. As the plane went through the clouds it felt as though the clouds were solid but getting close it was more fantastic than a hot knife through butter. I remember when the plane was above the clouds and looking as the created expanse my heart was filled with admiration and this song just burst out in my spirit “ Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art! How great Thou art!, Then sings my soul, My Savior God to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art!
You see I believe many have seen these sights countless times but you see my experience leads me to worship The Lord. What does your experience lead you to? To love the Lord your God requires that you do so even with your imagination. God can do exceedingly, abundantly and far above all that we could ever think or imagine. Child of God let your imagination run wild. As a young boy I often would lay in bed in the afternoons imagining how I wanted my life to be when I grew up. The Lord can inspire your imagination so that the outcome is not far from your day dreams. By the Grace of God a greater percentage of the things I used to imagine for myself have come to pass. Let your thoughts and imaginations lead you to the greatness of God.
1 Corinthians 2:9 – but just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man,
All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Loving the Lord requires your will. Will power is necessary in the pursuit of anything worthwhile. The word will is used to express desire, choice, willingness, consent, or in negative constructions refusal. You ability to love God the way He requires demands a deliberate act fueled by will power. Nothing good is done without effort. In the case where the King of Kings is involved being intentional and deliberate is required.
In Psalm 34 an amazing show of will power was displayed by King David; A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed. I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Beloved to love God with all your mind requires your deliberate will regardless of your situation or realities. You see loving God is not confined only to good times. This was a man who was being looked for to be killed and in his attempt to be safe faked madness, and even in this state of uncertainty declared that I WILL BLESS THE LORD AT ALL TIMES…. My God! You are in the comfort of your home, life is happening for you, the lines are falling for you in pleasant places yet you lack the will to love God how He requires. Precious One, the time has come to jump out of our comfort zones and press on to loving God will every fibre of our beings.
The Lord requires all our attention in the expression of our love for Him. Your revelation of who God is Determines your Love! To love God with all your mind requires a renewal of the mind. In Ephesians 4:23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. The renewal of your minds affects your thoughts, your imagination, your memory, your will and with every sensation in your being.
Renewal of the mind causes a shift in our desires and attentions, To be renewed in the mind brings about true Transformation in the life of a believer. Your ability to receive new information from the word of God depends on the level of renewal of your mind. Old wineskin cannot receive new wine. New wine is received in new wine skin. The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.
Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
The renewed mind of the believer goes with a regenerated spirit that receives knowledge from the Lord.
1 Corinthians 2:16
For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:11
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
Jeremiah 17:10
“I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.
The benefits of loving the Lord with all your mind;
1. The Joy of the Lord
Philippians 2:2
Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
2. Wisdom and Understanding
Luke 24:45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
Job 38:36 “Who has put wisdom in the innermost being Or given understanding to the mind?
3. Sound Mind
2 Corinthians 5:13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you.
2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and sound mind.
4. Perfect Peace
Romans 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.
Beloved if there is any plan to make this year, it should be to have a deeper relationship with the Lord God Almighty. The time for games should end and the season of expressing true love to the Lord should begin and continue. The Lord is Good and His Mercies endure forever.
My prayer for you is this: 1 Chronicles 29:18
O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Your people, and direct their hearts to You; In Jesus, Precious Name
Shalom, peace and life to you.
Pastor Ron Chiarelli
Virtuous Living 