And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 22:37-40 ESV
Loving God with all of my mind is using all of my intellectual capacity to love Him. I remember being a new Christian, and being intimidated by the wealth of biblical knowledge that the people around me seemed to possess. Outside of the major stories that everyone knew—creation, the flood, Moses, Jonah, and Jesus—I didn’t know much about the Bible.
Interestingly, it took me years to actually open scripture regularly on my own—I was so intimidated by the book that I didn’t even know where to begin. Sadly, I was also fairly prideful and didn’t want to look as if I didn’t have as much biblical knowledge as the next person, so rather than seeking a deeper understanding, I faked it. I had questions, but I didn’t seek answers because either I didn’t want to appear as if I didn’t know the answer (pride), or I didn’t even know where to begin (fear). I was so afraid of asking some of those questions because I believed my faith was small and fragile—I feared the answers would reveal to me that it was all a ruse. I needed God to be real.
So, I stuffed many of those questions away for a long time. As I reflect back on those years, I am so thankful that the grace of God moved me through them while keeping my faith intact. Those questions were like hiccups in my faith, though, so it’s easy for me to see how they could draw someone away from the faith. If I dwelled on a question too long, I could feel my faith slipping, so I would stop. I wish I knew then what I know now to be true—it would have saved me so much anguish.
Unanswered questions offer a foothold for the enemy to step into our hearts. He will take those seeds of doubt and grow them until you walk away, completely dissatisfied with God and all He has done. The truths of Christianity have satisfied the greatest minds in history. We should be chasing down any questions we might have and using our minds to prove God is true. Our God is big enough to answer any question you may have about Him or this universe. I’ve discovered the most beautiful part of chasing down the answer to a question about God is that it increases my faith by magnitudes greater than I could have imagined.
Loving God with all of our minds means we are making new discoveries about Him all the time. We should be investing energy every single day of our lives learning more and more about our Father in Heaven, and filling our minds with His truths. Read His Word—every single day. The reality is if you’re not, you are not loving God with all of your mind. When you love God with your mind, when you capture all those imaginings and questions, He will direct your thoughts to things that are pure and lovely, to things that are honorable and true, to things that are lovely and just. If our minds are dwelling on the goodness of the Lord, our minds are at peace. In Isaiah 26:3, God promises to quiet the anxieties and the expectations, He promises to quell the doubts and the frustrations. He promises to keep our minds in perfect peace.
If our minds are filled with the peace of God, our interactions and our relationships, our decisions and our words will be an outpouring of His peace. Our spouses will see the perfect peace of God when our minds are focused on Him. Start in His Word today. Start by answering those questions, discover something new about Him, and allow Him to fill your mind with His goodness—this is where a marriage that endures begins.
Press on ~ you are loved 💗
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