With All Your Mind

"Jesus answered, 'The most important [commandment] is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your MIND and with all your strength." - Mark 12:29-30

As we strive to love God, all around us, every day, there is a constant battle for our minds. That is why we need to study the Word of God, so we can know the mind of God and what He expects of us and how He wants us to live. You're not going to learn that by reading the daily newspaper, listening to talk radio, staring at a computer, or vegging in front of the TV. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Isaiah 55:8 and 9. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." That's a beautiful passage in the Word of God to describe why the Word of God is so unique. Because everything we read here in this life tends to be contrary to what God's Word is saying. We need to immerse ourselves in the Word of God as a way of getting to know God, so that we can love God with our minds.

Sill Hungry? Deuteronomy 6:4-5

The Virus of Sin

There must have been a time when you noticed something wrong with your computer, you shrugged it off. The little cursor arrow began jumping around on your screen when you were trying to move it. But then the problems became more troubling. The computer turned off and restarted again- without permission. Error messages popped up on the screen. Finally the computer programs slowed to the point that you could not get work done. You work on it but keep failing to fix it. Eventually you take the laptop to a technician. He performs diagnostics tests and found over 100 viruses.  The computer was totally infected and could not be cleaned up- it was beyond repair.

When Adam and Eve first sinned in the Garden of Eden, they infected the human race with sin (Romans 5:12). Since then, every person born on earth has been infected with the “sin virus” and we spread it to others. Our nature and our actions are polluted with sin so that, left to ourselves, we have no hope of dealing with our sin problem.

In Romans 3, Paul reveals how deep the problem of sin is. It impacts our morality our minds, and our mouths. It fills our hearts with murderous thoughts and makes us miserable.

If we can’t save ourselves, then God must act. His holy perfect nature demands justice. He cannot allow the guilt and pollution of sin to spread unchecked. He must take action against that which distorts and destroys His creation. He must take action against that which breaks His law- otherwise He would be a negligent judge.

This is where the gospel makes all sense. If we are still imagining we are only slightly bothered by sin and able to save ourselves then we have no reason to trust the gospel-we can just try harder and eventually save ourselves. But if we are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1) and unable to do anything to save ourselves, then no one but God Himself can help us. By subsisting Jesus, the sinless Son of God, for us, God’s justices is satisfied.

The problem of what that awful soul-virus, the guilt and pollution of sin, is also solved because we are united to Christ (Galatians 3:26-28) and given access to all the blessings given to Him by the Father- including His perfect, righteous, holy standing before God. This grave problem of life-sapping sin can only be solved by the death of Christ 

Still Hungry? Isaiah 5:16, Romans 2:2, Ephesians 3:6, Galatians 3: 26-28, Ephesians 3:6

Turn On The Light

And this is the judgment, that the light [Jesus] is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." - John 3:19

In light of all the evidence of God’s existence, where it just seems so convincing to so many of us who do believe, the question rises, “Why don’t people believe?” God gives us the answer in the first chapter of John. "In Him was life…." In other words, Jesus is the source of all life: "...and the life was the light of men." That means enlightenment about God, about life, its ultimate meaning and purpose.

John goes on to add "...and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." One big reason some people don’t believe in God is they just can’t comprehend it. But the major reason that man does not comprehend the existence of God is because of man’s sin. Man will put up an intellectual smoke screen with regards to ideology or concerning the existence of God, but the major reason that man does not believe that God exists is because of sin that causes man to be in spiritual darkness. And because sin is man’s desire to be in control and do things his way, when the light comes on men scurry from the light, because they want to continue to live in the darkness; they still want to live their lives their way.

Jesus is light – the source of ultimate enlightenment about God and life. Living in the dark is foolishness. It’s time to turn the light on – and live.

Still Hungry? John 7:7, Psalm 52:3