What does it mean to Love the Lord your God with all your Mind?

This challenge for all Christians comes directly from Jesus who reminded listeners of the greatest commandment: 

“‘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.’”
Luke 10:27.

It is a confirmation Jesus made about the importance of using intellect and reason to become a mature follower and disciple. So, how does a Christian “Love God with all your mind”?

Jesus provided the way to love God with your mind by giving each new believer the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to lead them to life-transforming truths found throughout the Bible. What is required on the believer’s part is to be diligent in using all their God-given faculties to gain relevant knowledge and understanding by reading, studying, examining and discussing Biblical truths.

This pursuit of truth will also lead to grasping the meaning of apologetics, i.e. what Christians believe and why they believe it.

This intellectual undertaking, guided by the Holy Spirit, will result in Christians being able to discern truth from cultural lies and will help them justify their beliefs about all things important. Those faculties we are given to use include our senses (including common sense and sense of curiosity), memory, logical reasoning abilities and our moral conscience.

Reason and logical thinking differentiate man from all other creatures. This is the essence of being made in the Image of God. These unique qualities imply the importance of using our mind and intellect to enter into an intimate and personal relationship with God and with Jesus Christ. Eventually the believer will be capable of thinking like a Christian on all elements or disciplines encountered in life and in the culture. He or she will have developed a Biblical worldview.

For a more in-depth study of this topic, we recommend books, Love Your God with All Your Mind by J. P. Moreland,  and Your Mind Matters by John Stott.

Images by holdentrils and RÜŞTÜ BOZKUŞ from Pixabay