Are You All In -- Mind

I can have a complete argument in my head, worked out my points, figured out answers to his possible objections, and when I finally have the disagreement with my husband he never knows what hits him. It’s not fair. It’s a tactic I learned when I was settling bodily injury claims with attorneys. As a matter of fact, in the first year of marriage I had to apologize to my husband during a disagreement because by the time I had reached point three of why his argument was invalid, I was holding up three fingers and killing it. I realized I had not only crossed the line, but I had run so far past the line I couldn’t even see it. The biggest spiritual warfare battlefield especially for women lies in our minds, or am I the only one?

We are studying the phrases – with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and with all your soul. In the last blog we covered the heart. Today, let’s consider loving the Lord our God with all our mind (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27).

In the prior blog you read how the heart is autonomous. It beats on its own without being told to do so and how the heart starts beating about 16 days after conception. The mind or brain is also autonomous and starts developing 25 days after conception, but there is a part that is not autonomous. Our thoughts are not autonomous. Philippians 4:8 tells us what we are to think on. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 tells us we are to take captive every thought and make them obedient to Christ. We can control our thought life. Let’s just be honest. Sometimes it’s easier than others to control our thoughts.

The more we mature the better we should get at controlling our thoughts because we’ve had more practice, right? The brain continues to mature until someone reaches their mid to late 20s. The brain never stops from the moment it starts developing. It is an incredible organ firing neurons and such rapid sequences just in order to allow us to blink our eyes. When a part of the brain is damaged, did you know there are some areas that can be retrained to help the damaged part? Isn’t that amazing? There are times, however, when the damage to the brain prevents retraining. Brain damage affects the whole body. If the brain isn’t sending out signals or messages for the foot to move, it doesn’t move. If the brain isn’t sending out signals or messages for the words to form in your mouth, you lose the ability to speak.

The mind also allows us to remember, think and reason. We can remember the things God has done in our lives. We can think on Scripture. It helps us to look for and identify God’s hand in our lives. It helps us to direct our thoughts, to move and act in a way that exhibits God’s love through us.

But what happens when you don’t love God with all your mind? What happens to your relationship with God when you love Him with just part of your mind because you want to continue to watch questionable movies, read inappropriate books and magazine, and listen to crass and vulgar language and music? Let’s get even more personal. The mind is where you remember things that have happened to you or your family, catalogues your unforgiveness of others and your negative and catty thoughts about the person in line in front of you. What happens to the body of Christ when you don’t love God with all your mind? What happens to your testimony if you don’t love God with all your mind? Your choices and actions affect everyone around you.

Whatever you meditate on, whatever you dwell on will come out of your mouth or be displayed in your actions. And if what you meditate or dwell on is contradictory to what a Christ would have you think on and your actions follow suit, then what does that say about your faith?

Like I said writing these blogs exposing what God reveals to me about my life is NOT pleasant. He has walked on my toes, kicked my shins, and taken me to the woodshed because He loves me, and if you can learn from this, then it’s worth it.

Dear Heavenly Father,

I cannot begin to comprehend how you know everyone’s thoughts before they think them. I am embarrassed by the thoughts you’ve seen go through my mind, and I ask for your forgiveness. Cleanse every part of my heart and mind. Help me to love you with ALL my heart and ALL my mind withhold nothing from You. Your generosity of grace and mercy is unmatched, and for that I am so incredibly thankful.

In Your sweet Son’s name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen

Are You All In -- Heart

When I speak or teach, God has taught me the material before I stand before a crowd. Confessing my weakness and teaching women what I’ve learned is rewarding. Writing the blog for Girlfriend Ministry is a blessing and an honor, but it can also be quite scary because I reveal my weaknesses, my shortcomings and whatever God is using in my life to draw me closer to Him. I do so in the hopes that someone else out there can relate, can learn, and will know you aren’t alone. So here’s my confession.

Too many times as a Christian I’ve become blasé about the Word of God. I’ve heard the same verse so many times. I’ve read the same verse too many times to count that I don’t bear the weight of the words I read. I don’t know the depth of its meaning because I’ve become numb to the words.

God recently convicted me by waking me up early one morning with these phrases on my mind:

                With all your heart

                With all your mind

                With all your strength

                With all your soul.

Have you heard those words before? Have you read them before? Have you ever felt the weight of those words or know the depth of them?

Let’s look at heart. In Hebrew in the Old Testament, the word heart is lebab. It means inner man, will, most interior organ, central point for blood, and the seat of life. In the New Testament the Greek translation for heart is kardia, which is the root of cardiology. It is the seat of physical life.

The heart starts beating around the 16th day after conception, and it continues until the day you die beating around 100,000 times a day. You don’t have to tell it to beat. It just does. It’s autonomous. The Bible tells us we are to love the Lord our God with ALL our heart. Our love for God should be autonomous, should be the most natural thing. We are created to love God but because of sin we choose to rebel.

In Deuteronomy 4:29, 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 30:6 and Proverb 3:5, Jeremiah 29:13, Zephaniah 3:14, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27, Acts 8:37, Psalm 9:1, and Psalm 138:1, Scripture tells us we are to seek with ALL our heart, love, serve, return, obey, and trust God with all our heart. We are to believe, be glad and rejoice and praise God with ALL our heart. But how many of us do all those things with all of our hearts?

When the whole heart fails to work, there is arrhythmia, heart failure which can lead to death. When one or more chambers fail to pump, there’s weakness, blood pressure issues, fainting, dizziness, tightness in the chest and difficulty breathing. When the heart doesn’t work completely, the whole body is affected. When you withhold part of our heart from loving, serving, obeying, trusting, believing and praising God, how does that affect the body of Christ? How does it affect your relationship with God?

If the heart is the seat of life by circulating the blood, what kind of relationship do you have with your Savior who spilled His life-giving blood for you to give you eternal life when you are only willing to love Him with part of your heart?

Do you see what I mean? These words have great weight and depth, and they’ve become so common I failed to treasure them in my heart.

Abba Father,

Thank you for your beautiful love letter to us. Your Scripture is so full and rich, and thank you for wanting to cultivate that kind of relationship with those who believe and confess you as Lord. Father, I thank you for loving us first (1 John 4:19). Thank you for loving us and thinking we were worth dying for in order to have a relationship with us. Please forgive me for failing to love you with ALL my heart. Please forgive me for failing to serve, return, obey, trust, praise and believe with all my heart. I’m so thankful that when we seek you with ALL our heart, we can find you.

                                                                                                                                Amen