All In!! Part 3

And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.'

The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these."

INTRODUCTION

Good evening Southpointe!! We are in our third part of All In!!

We have talked about love the Lord God with all your heart, all your soul, and tonight we are going to talk about Loving the Lord God with all your mind!

So let me ask you a question, “ What if you could take a pill that would make you smarter and allow you to use 100 percent of your brain?

In 2011 there was a movie Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper was based on the same idea, except the precise figure was placed at 20 percent instead of 10 percent. Cooper's character takes a pill that lets him access the full 100 percent.

And after taking this super pill, he writes a book in an afternoon, becomes a financial genius, having all the right answers and know exactly what to do in any situation.

Then just recently, there was a movie called: Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson, It's based on the immortal myth that we use only 10 percent of our brains.

Johansson's character is implanted with drugs that allow her to access 100 percent of her brain.

She gained the ability to learn Chinese in an instant, beat up bad guys, and throw cars with her mind (among other new talents).

Morgan Freeman plays neuroscientist Professor Norman, who's built his career around the 10 percent claim.

"It is estimated most human beings use only 10 percent of the brain's capacity," he says, "Imagine if we could access 100 percent."

Many people believe that we only used 10 percent of our brain.

But is this just a myth?

The myth start years ago and many believe that it beginning was from this journalist Lowell Thomas who helped spread the myth in his preface of book that Dale Carnegie wrote called How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Thomas misquoted a American psychologist William James as saying that the average person specifically "develops only 10 percent of his mental ability."

In 2012, a survey of school teachers in Britain and The Netherlands found that 48 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively, endorsed the myth.

Last year, a US survey by the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research found that 65 percent of people believed in the myth.

Many researchers believe that there is no truth to the idea that we only use 10 percent of our neural matter. Modern brain scans show activity coursing through the entire organ, even when we're resting.

But my thing is I don’t believe that we don’t have the access to it, and the brain is a live and well, but do we use it?

Play the video, People doing stupid things.

So after seeing things like this, we must have some after thoughts.

But I believe God created us and our mind is there to be used. And our society values the mind.

We care about intellect, reason, logic, and the ability to discover and learn knowledge.

But at times, that love of the mind seems to come under fire within the Christian faith.

For example, we might think religion is about feelings and it isn’t rational like science classes or mathematical equations.

And because of this the doubters and skeptics that view Christianity as lacking of knowledge and it is all about feelings and no facts.

Many people believe that religious claims are neither factual in nature nor subject to rational evaluation.

So tonight I want you to look at this subject with me.

And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.'

We know that this is the greatest commandment and the whole theme of the message here is loving God with all.

Loving God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.

The Greek word for mind is “dianoia” which means “the mind as the faculty of understanding, feeling, and desiring.

The aspect of feeling and desire when describing the mind might be kinda stranger to us. Because we want to compartmentalize thinking, feeling, and doing.

This is what I want you to notice remember we talked about the Shema prayer.

And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.

Do you see something missing in this verse? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, but there’s no all your mind.

The Hebrews viewed the heart, soul, and strength of a person as having the ability to think and gain knowledge.

But Jesus said we must love God with all our mind. this means that the mind is a place of worship.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

This is what Apostle Paul said:

Apostle Paul believed that the human heart was more

Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; (KJV)

Throughout Apostle Paul’s letters he emphasizes the important of the renewal of the mind and seeking truth and understanding.

Look at Philippians:

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.

For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return.

And one of the scripture most quoted:

Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Apostle Paul was constantly dealing with us (Christians) to resist this fallen and wicked world.

And if you notice there’s a battle for the mind. The way we think!!

Paul declares that humanity has rejected the knowledge of God and has gave over to a corrupt mind.

Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done.

There is a relationship between the corrupt mind and the wickedness of this world.

So it is so important for Christians to have a transformed mind. As Christians we should refuses the norm of this sinful world and we should reaffirm ourselves with the spiritual values and the Word of God which is our spiritual norm.

The renewing of our minds will help us and each believer should keep going back to his original commitment to God.

Our plan of action should be to:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

God cares about truth, knowledge, and wisdom and God wants us to understand Him and the world around us.

But sin has impacted our minds so our thinking must be transformed by the Power of God.

So how do we love God with our minds? By allowing our minds to be transformed.

Instead of just focusing on the things that this world has to offered the knowledge and wisdom.

How about using the knowledge and wisdom to bring glory and honor unto God.

Simply by bring God into our way of thinking instead looking to the world for all the answers.