DAY #12 - “Use It or Lose It”

Matthew 22:37 states, "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."

In this passage, Jesus has just silenced the Sadducees in (vs. 29-32). Sadducees did not believe in the final resurrection and so they were trying to deceive Jesus into admitting the same by asking a masked question about marriage and remarriage. In verse twenty-five, one of the Pharisees who was an expert of the Old Testament Law had heard what Jesus said to the Sadducees, asked Jesus what the greatest commandment commandment in the law was. Jesus responded with verses thirty-seven through forty. 

Often times we look to that verse and use it to rightfully justify loving God with the entirety of our being. We are great with telling our families and ourselves that we need to love God with the entirety of our desires, ambitions, and passions. Sometimes we are all about worshipping the Lord with all of our soul through corporate worship. But the problem is that last phrase "with all thy mind." What are we supposed to do with that? How are we supposed to worship the Lord with our minds?

The answer can be twofold: with what you allow to enter and remain in your mind and by exercising your mind. Similarly with computers, garbage in, garbage out. We worship the Lord by filtering what comes into our minds. God is very much concerned with whom we become because it is influenced and shaped by what we allow into our minds. Only a fool will let anything into their minds via entertainment or allow themselves to contemplate any thought that arouses in their mind.

The second way we worship the Lord with our minds is by exercising our intellect. God is an intellectual being. God has a mind and thoughts and as created in the image of God, so do we. This does not necessarily mean that we have to go back to school or earn degrees, but it does mean we are to expand and grow our minds. We, as men, need to utilize the minds God has given us to further His kingdom by defending His Word and by expounding His Word. What a shame for a Christian family if the mother is the spiritual leader and she is more versed in the Scripture than the husband. 

 Voddie Baucham once asked the question as to why, whenever there a young man who is becoming well versed in Scripture and has a propensity for spiritual things, does the church almost immediately push him towards seminary and preaching ministry? Do our churches not need deacons, ushers, and servants who are well versed in the Scriptures themselves? 

GOD’S MAN CHALLENGE
"Exercise and guard the wonderful mind God has created in you!"

GOD’S MAN PRAYER
Lord, help me to grow the mind that you have given me. Please help me guard it with utmost care and use it. AMEN.