Last week, while doing my quiet time, God put this vision in my mind (refer to picture) and i was kind of intrigued by it. The usual phrase goes 'mind, body and soul', while this went (in this order) 'heart, soul and mind', so I was wondering what God meant by that. Then i was reminded of "..You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" Matthew 22:37 (NKJV). I can relate to loving God with all my heart and soul, but mind..? What did He mean by mind? What was He trying to tell me?
A search on the various bible translations (biblegateway.com) revealed what God meant by 'mind'.
The Message version - all your passion and prayer and intelligence
Amplified - all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect)
Young Literal's Translation - all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thine understanding
Being pampered by God's provisions and seeing Him deliver on His promises has made it easy to love Him with my heart and soul. But how do we love someone with our minds? Looking at the different translation results - using our intelligence to engage and to understand.
When we love someone and feel that he/she is important to us, we do not just emotionally feel for them. In fact, we also bother to remember the things he/she likes, we bother to try to understand his/her personality and character traits, and we think of the many possible ways through which to show the person how much we love him/her. Remembering, understanding and thinking are all functions of the mind.
If we love God, not only do we just feel grateful for all His blessings and promises, because that is just us feeling loved by God. We have to go one step further and try to remember God's likes and dislikes, understand what His character is like, and think of ways in which we show Him how much we love Him.
How do we achieve that? We read His word, the Bible. Not just aiming to understand what happened in biblical history (although that is important), but to use our intellect and grasp the heart behind God's actions throughout the biblical events, as well as the meaning behind His words. We should read with understanding!
So people (yes, I am included), if you have a sincere desire to move on from just feeling loved to wanting to show God your love, I would encourage you to keep on doing whatever you have been doing for Him at the moment. All of that has been good. But take it up another level by seeking to understand Him. While sermons are good, waiting for the word to be delivered during weekends simply pushes the responsibility of growing your understanding of God to the preacher. Take ownership of your love for God, love Him with your mind. Seek His word diligently, and "..if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul" Deutoronomy 4:29 (NKJV).
God bless you!
