How to inherit eternal life, part 8: loving God with all your mind

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

We are continuing our study on how to inherit eternal life by loving God. In previous posts, we looked at how to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. Today, we look at how to love God with all our mind. (You can click on the links to open a new window and review those posts.) 

The word translated as "mind" is dianoia". This is a profound word that we, in the body of Christ, need to embrace. Dianoia is literally a "thinking through". To love God with our mind, then, is to spend time pondering, reflecting on Him and on His Word. To do this, we must know His Word by studying it and "thinking it through" so that we understand it and its implications for our life. This love by dianoia involves knowing Him and meditating on His attributes.

It may be that loving God with all our mind, dianoia, is critical for loving God with all our heart, soul, and strength. When we make the effort to know Who God is, we have a better understanding of this One we serve. Understanding the majesty and might of our God should bring us to a position of humility and love before Him. When we love Him with our mind, studying His Word to know what He expects of us and the relationship He offers us, it should change our life. 

We use our minds to "think through" this life of faith, and it is with our minds that we make the choice to follow Him. If we truly understand something of our relationship to our loving heavenly Father, we must desire to please Him, honor Him, and obey Him, for knowing God must bring us to loving Him. It is only through dianoia that we gain this knowledge. 

To review, the initial question was "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" When Jesus asked the lawyer how he understood the law, he replied, "Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself." Jesus replied, "You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live." Inheriting eternal life involves "doing". It is not the doing of walking down an aisle, being baptized, or filling out a commitment card that brings us eternal life. All of those acts may be a part of our walk of obedience, but it is the "doing" of loving God that brings eternal life, and it is accomplished through relationship with our triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Loving God, then, begins with dianoia, this thinking through so that we have understanding. It is a "thinking through with results", rather than a pointless, pie-in-the-sky pondering. Dianoia requires that our pondering have change as its objective, so that we might understand God better and live in ways that please Him more. It requires that we be still and learn to know our God. Loving with our mind is the way we begin to love Him with every fiber of our being because it is the way we learn to know the God we love. 

Selah. Pause and consider.

Then, dear ones, love Him with dianoia.
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There is much to learn of faith and following from the story of Jairus, who trusted Jesus for the life of his daughter when it seemed that all hope was gone. The story is examined with dianoia in The Waiting: When the Answer to Your Prayer is Delayed and Your Hope is Gone, and is available here. Also available in Tupelo at Joyful Creations and Park Place Salon.

How to inherit eternal life, part 7: loving God with all your strength

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

We are continuing our study on how to inherit eternal life by loving God. In previous posts, we looked at how to love God with all our heart and with all our soul. Today, we look at how to love God with all our strength.

The word translated as "strength" is ischys and literally means "ability". (BLB) To love God with all our strength, then, is to love Him with the best of our ability. When we do the very best we can at loving God, we have done enough. There is no need to love God the way someone else does. God does not measure the way we love Him by the preacher, the Sunday School teacher, or the most saintly person we know. He does not measure our love for God by how the saints and martyrs loved Him. God simply asks for us to love Him to the very best of our ability. How incredible is that? It is not too hard. It is not impossible. We are simply to love Him with the strength, the ability that He has placed in us. 

Jesus gave His life for us when He loved us with all His strength. Loving Him back with all our strength can be costly, but it will not be too hard for us to do. Just to be clear, this is not a whining, sniveling, "I did the best I could" excuse, kind of love. Remember that we are also called to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind. Don't lose sight of the fact that we are to love Him to the very best of our ability. The wonderful truth, however, is that, when we love Him with every fiber of our being, the best we can, it is enough.

Enough. Isn't that a beautiful word? Loving God is not too hard to do. We can love Him with all our strength (all our ability) and trust Him to increase our ability. We can love Him in this way, but the question that remains is "Will we?" Will we love Him the very best we can? Oh, dear ones, it is easier than you might think and more important that you can imagine.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails;...

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13 NASB)

How to inherit eternal life, part 6: loving God with our soul

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

In the previous post, we looked at loving the Lord with all our heart. (You can click on the link to read it.) Today, we consider loving the Lord with all our soul. 

The word translated as "soul" is psychē, and is used here to indicate "the seat of the feelings, desires, and affections". (BLB) The soul is the part of us that is eternal and cannot be destroyed. To love God with all our feelings, our desires, and our affections is not a whimsical kind of love. It requires the kind of "taking every thought captive" that Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians 10:5. We cannot love God with feelings that are sinful, with desires that are perverse, with affections that are ungodly. Loving God requires us to take ungodly thoughts, feelings, desires, affections captive and sacrifice our desires to His. 

When we read the words of the Psalmist, we assume God will give us what we want. Look again at those words.

Delight yourself in the Lord; 

And He will give you the desires of your heart. 

Psalm 37:4 NASB

The promise is not that God will give us whatever we desire. The promise is that He will give us new desires. He will give us His desires as our own, and when He does, that seat of desire, our soul, can love Him more fully, more completely. In fact, in this place deep in our hearts, we  cannot love as we ought unless the Lord Himself places His desires in our hearts. That placing happens when we take delight in Him. As we love, He equips us to love more. 

Perhaps that sounds as if we are impotent bystanders, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is a constant work of submission to wrestle the seat of our feelings, desires, and affections into submission to God, but when we forge ahead in that work which must be done, we find a love that is greater and more complete than any other. 

We are not to be ruled by feelings; instead, we are to act our way into new feelings. Do we feel cranky and irritable? Perhaps. Instead of acting out on that irritability, however, we must, with God's help, choose love instead. By responding in love rather than reacting in irritability, we love God with our feelings. 

When we want the things of the world, we must relinquish our desire for what tantalizes and choose the things of God instead. By relinquishing our desires, we love God with our desires. It is the same with affections. Do our relationships, our affection for the things of this world help us love God more or draw us away? We must choose to place our affections on "things above", loving the things God loves, the people God loves. In loving what God loves, in loving those whom God loves, we love Him with "all our soul". This loving those whom God loves may be the hardest part, but it is worth it! When we love the unlovely, we love as God has loved us, for who could be more unlovely that we ourselves? 

Oh dear ones, all this relinquishing and submitting sounds like a dreadful job and a devastating loss, but it brings the sweetest joy imaginable. Let us not forget that it is in loving God with every fiber of our being, Christ said, that we live, both now and in eternity. It is a radical, unpopular love, but therein is life. Love Him, friends, love Him with all the feelings, desires, and affections in your heart and you will find joy immeasurable and hope overflowing.

How to inherit eternal life, part 5: Loving with our whole hearts

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

In the previous post, we considered the issue of Lordship. Loving in the way that pleases God begins with making Him our Lord, our Master. He must be the One in charge of our destiny. The only other choice is rebellion, so  we are compelled by the hope of eternity to submit to His Lordship. We cannot have it both ways. We can not love the Lord our 
God with all our heart, soul, and strength unless He is our Lord.

We turn now to the issue of loving the Lord our God with all our heart. The word translated as "heart" is kardia and refers to the muscular organ responsible for circulating blood throughout our body. Because Scripture tells us that "the life is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11), the heart was considered the center of life, mental and moral as well as physical. 

The reference here is to something done by the heart, as in loving God by our whole hearts, and indicates sincerity and lack of pretense. (thayer) Now we begin to see, don't we? Loving the Lord our God with all our heart involves loving Him with sincerity, and without pretense. There is nothing fake about it. 

We've all seen people who talk a great line about their faith, yet their lives tell a different story. We've likely been those people at times. Loving the Lord our God with all our heart, however, requires that we relinquish our "fake" demonstrations of love and truly love Him with every fiber of our being. 

This kind of love is a 24 hour a day love, in which thoughts of the One our heart loves are never far away. This kardia love makes every decision on the basis of that love. This kardia love has as it's goal the pleasure of the One we love. Finding ways in which we can we bring delight to the Light of our life becomes our goal. That is how we love and live when we love with our whole heart. 

Loving with all our heart requires an undivided heart. There is no one, no thing, that matters more than the object of our love. Our love for God becomes the most important love in our life. There is room for other loves, of course, but God shares first priority with no one.

The heart is a muscular organ unique in its properties. As such, it can get stronger with exercise, and the exercise of love will do a wondrous work in our hearts. The most amazing outcome of loving God with our whole heart is that, as we love Him sincerely and totally, our heart gains strength for that love and we can love Him even more. What is even more remarkable is that, in loving God more, we gain a God-given ability to love others more, as well. In a sense, by loving God with our whole hearts, we become a wellspring from which the love of God can flow to all around us. 

Selah. Pause and Consider.

By relinquishing our entire hearts to our Lord, loving Him above all others, we can become a wellspring of His love, flowing to everyone around us. What a beautiful picture of the transformation that divine kardia love can produce in us!  

Is that the way you love? Is your heart undivided? Is your Lord the priority love of your life? It is only in giving all our heart to Him that we can receive this extravagant outpouring of His love through us, and it is an exchange that is not only worth making, but also the most important exchange we can make. 

Oh, dear ones, if you have not given your "whole heart" to God, do it now and begin to let His love flow through you, unhampered, undivided. Let His love be your goal. Let His love be your priority. 

How to Inherit Eternal Life, part 4: Lordship

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

The lawyer (expert in Mosaic law) asked Jesus a simple question. "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus asked him what the law said and he responded with two verses that are the essence of the law. "Love God. Love your neighbor." Jesus replied, "Do this and you will live." The love of which the lawyer spoke is the kind of love that will lead us to abundant life in this world and eternal life in the next. This love, however, is a beautiful and all-consuming love, and we will look at the kind of love we should have for the next few days. 

You shall love the Lord Your God

What does it mean to love the Lord Your God? Let's start with the word translated as "Lord." The word here is kyrios and is used to indicate the owner of a thing (or person) or the master. The kyrios has the authority to make all decisions concerning the one owned. The term is used as a title of both respect and reverence. The kyrios is the one in charge and what he says goes. Loving God appropriately begins with understanding who He is and who we are not. Almighty God is the One in charge, not us. We must defer to Him in every decision, trusting His Will for us and our lives. 

Until we understand and submit to God as Master, Owner, Planner, and Decider of every aspect of our lives, we will not love Him as we should. The problem comes when what we want is different from what God wants, doesn't it? If we look at the example of Christ, the Suffering Servant who became the Sin Sacrifice for all mankind, we get a glimpse of the extent to which God went for us. It also gives us a glimpse of the will of God and causes us to fear incredible sacrifice of our own. We dare not hold back from the One who gave everything for us, yet we do, mostly from fear of having to submit our will to His Will. 

I struggle with this, as do we all. This business of submitting to the One who has the authority to make every decision concerning us is difficult. We put our faith in a God we cannot see to direct the circumstances of the life we can see, and how blessed we are when we do this, for it is then that we begin to see the evidence of our Lord at work in our lives. The problem, of course, is that we want to direct our own fate, despite the fact that we do a poor job of it. 

We have a choice to make, right at the start. We can submit to the Master and allow Him to BE our Master, or we can direct our own lives and live in rebellion. We cannot have it both ways. Jeremiah 29:11 promises us that the plans God has for us are good, that they will be for our good and not for evil, and that those plans will give us a future and a hope. When we understand that, when we believe that, it becomes a simple choice to allow the One with good plans to proceed. 

Dear ones, the choice is simple, but it must be made. Will we allow our God to be our Lord, or not? The time to choose is now. Loving God demands it. 

How to inherit eternal life, part 3

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

The Jewish faith has a wealth of beautiful ritual that is highly symbolic. Even if you could not read Scripture for yourself, you could find much truth in the watching of and participating in the rituals alone. So it is for most liturgy that takes it origins in Scripture and the commands found there. There is beautiful truth stored within. 

The problem comes when the rituals and liturgies become routine. When we can repeat them as a matter of rote, we can easily lose sight of the truth they express. The Lord's Prayer is one of those sections of Scripture that has been repeated so often that we can easily lose sight of the fact that we are praying the same prayer Jesus prayed, in the same way Jesus prayed it. That is a profound thought. To do what Jesus did is incredibly hard, but in this one thing, He made it easy. With our rote, we've taken what He made easy and, in some ways, trivialized it. When we look at that passage in a fresh way, the lessons are astounding, aren't they?

The lawyer who came to Jesus mentioned a similar passage in his response to Jesus. He quoted from Deuteronomy 6. The passage begins with a commandment to listen and carefully obey all the commandments God had given, in order that "it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly." It goes on to say that, if they were obedient, God would bless them in the place where He was giving them cities they didn't build, houses that were full of good things they didn't fill, cisterns they didn't dig, vineyards they didn't plant. They would eat and be satisfied. 

Contentment. Obedience would lead to contentment. The men in Moses' time recognized that contentment in such a place was a worthy goal and they started by doing what God said. They were to teach the law to their children, talk of it morning and night, bind it as a sign on their hand and on their forehead, and write it on the doorposts of their houses and gates, so they memorized Scripture and repeated it twice a day. They wrote it down and placed it inside mezuzahs on their doorposts. They placed it inside leather bindings around their heads. The words they recorded were these:

Hear, Oh Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!

You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, 

and with all your soul, and with all your might. 

(Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

The entire Shema refers to a group of Scriptures that include Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41, and make up the prayers that are repeatedly daily. (They prayed the Scripture, a practice we do well to emulate.) There is tremendous truth in these verses and, as Jesus indicated, the entire law can be summed up in them. I've posted the Shema in a separate post (http://leannahollis.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-shema.html) for you to read. 

Why is this important? If we understand the perspective of the lawyer and that of Jesus, it becomes much easier to understand the Scripture. These men had known these verses all their lives. Jesus made it clear, however, that it was not enough to know the words of God or to speak the words of God. "Do this and you will live," He said. We must also do the words of God, as the doing is a demonstration of both our love for our God and our faith in His words. 

It's important for us to remember that Jesus "paid it all" but He still expects us to obey. It's not optional. Do this and live. 

The Shema

The Shema is comprised of portions of Scripture and is a vital part of daily prayers in the Jewish faith. I've reproduced it below, including the passages from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41. 

The Shema

"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NASB)

"It shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. He will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Beware that your hearts are not deceived, and that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them. Or the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its fruit; and you will perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you. "You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth. (Deuteronomy 11:13-21 NASB)

The LORD also spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the LORD your God." (Numbers 15:37-41 NASB)

According to www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, the three paragraphs of the Shema are recited as important declarations of faith. The first paragraph indicates "acceptance of Divine rule", the second paragraph indicates "acceptance of the commandments and the undertaking to carry out the commandments as evidence of their loyalty to God", and the third paragraph speaks of the tzitzit (prayer shawl) and " reminds the wearer of God's commandments." 

Try reading these Scriptures and praying through them once or twice a day for the next week. You might be surprised by the richness of the words and the experience. 

How to Inherit Eternal Life, part 2

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

The Pharisees, of which the scribes and lawyers were generally a part, were constantly trying to trick Jesus with their questions. Matthew 22:34-40 records just such an event. The Pharisees had tried to trick Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Rome. When they failed, the Saducees followed by trying to trick Jesus with a question about marriage in heaven. They, too, failed to trick Him and were silenced by the wisdom of His answer. Matthew 22:34-40 records yet another attempt on the part of the Pharisees to confound Jesus. They sent a lawyer (an expert in Jewish law) to Jesus, asking which is the greatest commandment. He quoted from Deuteronomy and He summed up the greatest commandment in this way:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:5 NASB)

He immediately followed with the second greatest commandment, a portion of a verse from Leviticus:

You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:18 NASB)

In this passage from Luke, a lawyer (expert in Jewish law) has come to Jesus, intending to trick Him. "How do I inherit eternal life?" he asked Jesus, who replied by asking, "What does the law say?" He answers with the same verses Jesus has used previously, summing up the law in those two verses from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. This is not as remarkable as we might think. The verse in Deuteronomy is a portion of the Shema, a vital part of the most important prayer in Jewish ritual. (We will look at this in more depth tomorrow.) This prayer was prayed at least twice daily by Jewish men, and both Jesus and the lawyer had heard it and recited it on a daily basis for their entire lives. It had likely become ingrained in them. They knew these words.

The Shema includes a portion on the rewards of obedience, but it is speaking of rewards in this life. There is not specifically a reference to eternal life. Jesus, however, answers with a passage from Leviticus. 

"So you shall keep My statues and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord." Leviticus 18:5 NASB

The word translated as "live" in the Luke passage is zaō and is used to mean "to enjoy real life, to have true life and worthy of the name, active, blessed, endless in the Kingdom of God." What Jesus told the lawyer was that obedience to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself summed it up. If you do that, you have attained the essence of the law and the heart of the gospel, and you will live, both now and in the future. Actually loving God and our neighbor in this way is a challenge to discuss another day, but for now, let's ponder the importance of obedience. Certainly, Jesus was not saying that we could "earn" our way to heaven. That is a gift that comes by grace alone through faith alone, but perhaps we need to understand that LOVE is a vital part of the equation. All the obedience to rules in the world cannot make up for a lack of love.

Pause and consider for a moment the love you have toward the Lord. Do you follow a checklist of rules, as the lawyer did, or is your obedience motivated by the depth of your love for our Lord? Love. It is where our life of faith begins. It is a critical part of the life of faith and cannot be avoided. Love God, love others, and love them with reckless abandon. It's not optional, but is that how we love? 

Selah. Pause and consider, then love.