Food for thought!

Mar 12:28-34

28 One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: "Which is most important of all the commandments?" 30 And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your life) and out of and with all your mind (with your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. This is the first and principal commandment.

32 The religion scholar said, "A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate-- that God is one and there is no other. 33 And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that's better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!" 34 When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, "You're almost there, right on the border of God's kingdom." After that, no one else dared ask a question.

Food for thought

You may have wondered why I call this daily reflection “Food for thought”; it is because of the words of Jesus: you shall love the Lord your God (...) WITH ALL YOUR MIND. Jesus is asking us to love God with, among other things, our mind, that is, with our intellectual faculty of thought, our mind, our intelligence. Jesus is saying that we must use our mind to deal with God. We must think.

To be human is to think, and to think is to be human. This is not really news because we know in Genesis 1:27

"So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them."

Since and if God created man in his own image and likeness, then man too is a thinking being, just as its creator.

When Jesus asked his disciples, “And you, Who do you say I am?”, (Mk 8:29) and “Love your God with all your […] mind.” (Mt 22:37), he was asking his disciples to think for themselves, and to use their thinking even in matters of God. It is therefore wrong to say that faith is unreasonable.

But what is the relationship between God and the mind? Well, the mind and all its activities like thinking is a God-given gift; it is imbued in man; it is innate and natural to man’s nature. When we think and use our mind we reflect our godliness; we show what we are: thinking animals. And we do use our thinking almost always. All inventions, all innovations and discoveries are by-products of thinking. Inventors, innovators and discoverers are thinkers just as are philosophers, theologians, scientists, believers, just to give a few examples.

When we use our mind to know God, we will, like Paul conclude, “everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage” (Phil 3:8).

When we think we reason. And when we reason we think. The two are the sides of a coin. God made us to think and to reason, to reason and to think. And he expects us to think, as I indicated above in Jesus’ question to his disciples, and his order to use our mind to deal with God. Likewise, God expects us to reason, He even engages us: “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18); “Always be ready to give a logical defense to anyone who asks you to account for the hope that is in you” (1Pt 3:15); “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.” (Rom 12:1-2). 

Now you understand why I call this daily reflection food for thought. It is my humble contribution for you to jump start your mind in thinking and knowing and loving God, as Jesus commends us.

Last but not least: "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" (I Peter 5:7).