Reflections on Loving God with Our Minds: Part 3

As we discovered in Part 2, the biblical idea of loving is not principally a feeling. Rather it is a decision to look out for another’s best interest. Think about what this means in terms of loving God. Loving God is not to have warm, fuzzy feelings toward God. Loving God means looking out for his best interest. Does God have interests? Yes, of course (though this does not imply God has needs).

What are God’s interests? Here are a few. God desires that his fallen world be set right. He desires a restoration of the broken relationship between himself and rebellious human beings. He desires that he be glorified in and by his creation (including humans).

To love God, then, means to align our thoughts, desires, affections, plans, words, and actions toward those things God desires. And this can only come about successfully when we fully apply our intellectual faculties to figuring out what God’s interests are and how we are going to orient our lives around those interests.

What are some other interests God has? What are some specific ways we can use our minds in seeing those interests, or the ones I mentioned above, get accomplished?

ALERT!!

This post is to give all you young people a heads up. If you didn't already know it, our society has very low expectations of you!

I don't know how many times I've heard over the years (and very recently) things like "that's just what boys do," "that's just how guys are," "they're going to do it, it's part of growing up," "if you think your kids aren't talking like that, you're crazy/naive/head is buried in the sand."

The people saying these things are talking about all kinds of behavior that goes against the way a Christian young person should be living their lives - things like drinking before legal age, getting drunk, doing drugs, having premarital sex, using crude or foul language, behaving immorally...

How does that make you feel? Most people really believe that you Christian young people cannot be serious about your walk with God; you can't be expected to honor & obey God and be Christ-like in your behavior. They have resigned you to running down the wrong path for the better part of your teen and twenty-something years and have already handed you over to the heartbreaking and often life-changing consequences that path leads you to. Can you believe they think no better of you than that?

But not all of us feel that way. Somewhere around you, you have Christian parents, or friends, or teachers, or mentors that believe much better of you.

We know you love God with all your hearts, and minds, and souls. We know that honoring God with all of your choices, even through your teen and twenty-something years, is your top priority because we believe you want to glorify God with your whole life!

And what do you know? You know that God has not forbidden the things He has just to keep you from having fun. You know that He has done so to protect you and to give you the most abundant life you can have. He has done so to keep sin's consequences far away from your life. Think about what some of those consequences might be: teen pregnancy; more bad choices made under the influence of some alcohol or drug - choices that can hurt or kill; turning someone away from Christ instead of towards Him; whole lives altered - and not for the better. And now think of the time wasted that could have been used in building up God's Kingdom; think of the regrets...

What else do you know? You know that obeying God is an act of gratefulness for what he has done for us and for our world through Jesus' death and resurrection. You know that and you don't take it lightly. You know that it may not always be easy to make the choices God wants you to make; you know you will face temptation. But you also know God has given you the power through the Spirit to do what is right. Will you make mistakes? Yes. Will you mess up? Sure. Will God forgive you? You know He will. This isn't about being perfect. It is about being set apart because you are God's child, and though you may fail at times, you will live your life to please Him. You are a disciple of Jesus. Your life and your choices will look different.

I challenge all of you not to lower yourselves to the expectations many in our society have for you. Instead, reach for the expectations those of us who love God, who love you, and who know you love God, have for you. We know you can do it...God knows you can do it!!

Reflections on Loving God with Our Minds: Part 2

In Part 1 we asked how seriously we take the requirement to love God with our minds. In Part 2, we now want to ask whether loving with the mind is even possible. On one hand we typically associate ‘love’ with feelings. We know we love someone when we have good, warm, tingly, affectionate feelings toward that person. On the other hand we associate the mind with thinking, reasoning, gaining facts and knowledge. ‘Love’ and ‘mind’ appear to be about very different things. Some people even contend that love is not something that can be commanded because feelings happen to us; we do not choose them (try to get angry or sad or happy on cue and you’ll see the point!).

However, a proper understanding of the biblical view of love will help us see that ‘love’ and ‘mind’ do go hand in hand and it makes perfect sense for God to command love. The biblical view of (non-erotic) love is not feeling-based. The proper way to understand the kind of love that Jesus call’s his followers to is to look out for the best interest of another. Loving another person, then, means that I seek what is best for that other person. And this is to be the case whether I feel anything for that other person or not. Ideally, though, compassionate or affectionate feelings will accompany a mature love, but the feelings are not the primary feature of biblical love.

Now, if love is the looking out for the best interest of another, then it makes perfect sense that the mind is deployed in this activity. A person who seriously looks out for another’s best interest will have to be very good with the use of the mind to figure out what will produce that which is in the best interest of the other. And, of course, looking out for another’s best interest can be commanded as well because that activity is not a feeling.

God is right in issuing a command to love with the mind. Not only is it possible to obey this command, but how else could one actually look after the interest of another apart from using one’s intellect? Would you want someone looking after your best interest who could not use his or her mind well? I wouldn’t. God apparently doesn’t either.