“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” –Mark 12:30
Hebrew is a very concrete language, that speaks to our five senses. It is an experientiallanguage. It’s no mistake that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. God wants us to “see” Him, “hear” Him, smell, taste, touch…it’s very palpable and real.
Although the New Testament is in Greek, it was written by Jews (with the possible exception of one). Their heart language was Hebrew, so the concepts, words, ideas, prophecies, fulfillments, and applications were all from a Hebrew way of thinking.
In Mark 12:30, Jesus tells us how to love God: with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. For some reason, it’s easy for us to live primarily out of our thoughts and minds. We’ve bundled our doctrines into nice, tidy truths in our brains; for many of us, that’s where they stay.
What about you? Are you a mental Christian?
Someone has said that the longest eighteen inches in the universe is the distance between the head and the heart.
God wants us to live out of both. He never intended us to live only out of our thoughts and minds. That’s very constricting and not the way we were designed or created. God made us for a much richer, fuller experience of Himself and the Kingdom of Heaven.
So yes, to the mind, but yes also to the heart and the soul. Our hearts allow us to have an authentic relationship with Him; to walk with the Lord hand-in-hand, to experience His embrace. Our souls consist of thoughts, emotions, and will. We can choose of our own free will to follow our Heavenly Dad and listen to His counsel, wisdom, and advice.
And yes, to strength. The body also participates in your relationship with the Lord. When you were saved, it was not just a mental transaction. You agreed to certain truths and doctrines, but the person of the Holy Spirit literally came inside of you, and you became a mobile carrier of the Spirit of the Lord and His glory.
Every fiber of our being—spirit, soul, and body—is made to be affected by the person of the Holy Spirit within us.
It is difficult and discouraging to live only out of the mind. It is too limiting, and we are made for so much more.
So fire up your faith, put your mind in its proper place (it will thank you!), and bring your whole self into the relationship.
