With All Your Mind

When Jesus was asked about the Great Commandment, we all know His response: "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 12:30). How often do we analyze His response? Generally, I think, we say, "Yeah, we get it, love God." Or, perhaps, we'll take it a step further and say, "Alright, the command is to love God with your whole being." And that would be accurate as far as it goes. But Jesus was specific. What did He mean?

First, obviously Jesus was quoting from the Old Testament when God made the command (Deut 6:5). So it wasn't just that Jesus was being specific. So was God. Still, I don't think the list of elements with which we ought to love God were included frivolously. I think there was a point. What point?

There are several human components included. There is the heart, the soul, the mind, and the strength. They are distinct, but certainly not separate. Why do I say that? Well, in Gen 6:5 we read that "the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually". Now, normally we don't think of "heart" in terms of "thought". That would be the mind. Jesus said, "Out of the heart come evil thoughts" (Matt 5:19). Hebrews says "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Heb 4:12). Thus, the heart has both thoughts and intentions. There is an overlap of heart and mind. And that's just one. We know that "strength" references the body, but there are also "powerful thoughts" and "powerful feelings", so it would be too limiting to think of it only as physical.

The soul is its own conundrum. It is often viewed as the life force, but it isn't merely that or wholly that. Job said, "My soul is weary of my life" (Job 10:1). If "soul" is merely "life force", then Job was saying "My life is weary of my life." Makes no sense. In James 3:15, the word psuchikos, Greek for "soul", is translated as "sensual" in the King James and "unspiritual" in the ESV. The soul, then, is indeed the "life force", but it is more. It is the mind, the will, the emotions. (And, oh, look, we've just made another overlay, where "soul" includes "mind" and "mind" is listed as a distinct component in the command.) The soul is the connection between physical and metaphysical, between a purely material world and that which is beyond material. The soul hungers and thirsts, praises and hopes, is bitter or rejoices.

And what, pray tell, is "the heart"? It's obviously not the organ that pumps blood. Biblically, the heart is considered the center of the human being. It is the source of emotions (See the connection to the soul?) and it has thoughts (See the connection to the mind?). In Ezek 11:19-20, God promises to give His people a "new heart". This new heart is required so that they would be able to "walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them." The biblical heart is that "inside self", our deepest thoughts and emotions, what we really are. It is the source of our moral choices, desires, affections.

Now, keeping in mind that all these things seem to overlap and interlace, what is God saying in this command? We are to love God. Good! We're all clear on that. We are to love Him with all of who we are. That would include our feelings, absolutely, but also our thoughts, morals, desires -- all of it. We are to love Him with our souls, that connection between the physical and the spiritual, our minds, wills, and emotions, our very life force. We are to love Him with every bit of strength we have, whether it is physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual.

I skipped over mind, but only momentarily. There are some who would like to suggest that "Love the Lord your God with all your mind" means "We love God by thinking right." That's not sufficient in the context of the command. It would seem, instead, that if we are to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength, then we are to be using all our thoughts to accomplish this. It is not merely holding to truth. I said "merely" because it does indeed include truth. But it is actively thinking about ways in which we can love Him more. It is thinking about ways that would fan my passion for Him. It would include considering application of strength and effort and emotion and choices to love Him more. Yes, it is about truth, but it is more than that. It is a mind focused on loving Him.

David wrote, "My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned" (Psa 39:3). "As I mused." As I thought, my heart became hot. We do, unfortunately, often neglect the mind in our loving God. Others tend to miss the mark by trying to make it all about thinking. We are to love the Lord with all of our being, each component adding depth and richness and layers to that love so that all that we are is involved in this flame of passion and this fundamental focus on our precious God. That one passion ought to fill our entire being. Our failure to do that one single thing ought to press us to do better. Our highest treasure shouldn't be what God gives, but God Himself. That's our command. That's our joy.