“Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38 NLT)
It’s extremely frightening when you consider you’re losing your memory. How so? Your memories, on some level, constitute the person you are. We operate from day to day based on what we remember. Many things are rote, in the sense we don’t even think about them. We don’t have a checklist on the mirror: did you shower, shave, brush your teeth, etc. UNLESS and until you can’t remember to do those things. (and no, I’m not quite there yet 😊)
But you get the point. Our mind is critical to the function of the “machine” which is us. That’s why Jesus said we should love the Lord our God with ALL our … MIND! Many would-be effective Jesus followers struggle because their mind is spread so thin. We wrongly believe we can face the world, whatever that looks like for you, without bathing our mind with God’s Words and thoughts.
To enter the flow of our day without spending time reading and pondering God’s Word, the Bible; speaking with Him about the details of what’s on HIS (not just our) agenda for our life that day, is like going to your wedding without showering or brushing your teeth.
Greg Locke wrote: “Satan’s target is your mind, and his weapons are lies. So fill your mind with the Word of God.” When we rush into our day without consulting our Savior we run the very real risk of being attacked in ways we’re not prepared to defend ourselves. The world is filled with people who believe lies propagated by Satan that too often begin, just like in the beginning, with: “Did God REALLY say THAT?” or it’s next of kin: “Is THAT what that verse/passage/the Bible as a whole is – REALLY saying?”
And if the Word of God isn’t fresh in our heart and mind, we, no matter how long we’ve had a profession of faith, may be tempted, if only for a second, to question if it’s really true as I’ve believed it. A white undershirt that’s been washed 20 times looks pretty good, until you sit it by a NEW white undershirt. We sometimes live with lies so long they begin to look like the truth, when they’re anything but.
We’ve been inundated by LGBTQ indoctrination for so long we can begin to wonder if what they’re saying may have some “truth” to it. “Maybe some kids are born to be another gender? Maybe I should rethink allowing my child to ___________. “And you can fill in the blank. Questions! That’s often how the enemy will invade our mind.
He will never tempt you to believe Jesus isn’t Lord, he’ll just distract you from listening to Him, then from fully following Him as Lord. The truth is, He’s either Lord or He isn’t! His Word is true, or it isn’t! You’re either following the Jesus of the Bible or you aren’t! There’s no in between. Satan isn’t about Truth or lies, He’s ONLY ABOUT LIES!
That’s all he knows, so, that’s all he can teach. He’s perfect at innuendoes and half-truths that sound credible but are completely false. Are gay people of the devil? Some of them are, just like many non-gay people are. Our sexual persuasion is a personal choice, but God has His view of sexual perversion that has and will never change.
We don’t write off people who sin, regardless of their “brand” of sin, we love them and point them to the Truth whose name is Jesus. But we’ll easily be confused if we let our mind become the devil’s playground. Remember, our mind is his target, and he loves to play there.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 