Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)
Here is a great question that every Christian should be able to answer: Is Christianity a “reasonable” faith? Or is it a “blind” faith? What is your answer? Let’s take a brief look and be both comforted and challenged. As Francis Bacon once said, “God has given us two books as sources of truth: the book of God’s works (creation) and the book of God’s word (the Bible).
Within the pages of the Bible, we see the inspired importance of the pathway to reason as we pursue truth, for ourselves and for others. For the person who is willing to look through clear lenses, God has revealed Himself in every aspect of creation. And for the person who is willing to look through clear lenses, God has revealed Himself on every page of the Bible. And within the pages of sacred Scripture, we find God driving us to study both of these books:
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2).
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correc5tly handles the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).
In our verse today, we are reminded to be thinking Christians. We are to love God with every fiber of our being, including our mind. Sadly, for many who profess the name of Christ, their minds have not been transformed through consistent and diligent study. They have the same basic worldview they had before becoming Christians. But this is not for you. Make no mistake, the proper use of reason is essential if we are going to share the truths of the gospel in ways that connect deeply with our audience and this will only happen when the mind is renewed.
Here is the single most important key to renewing the mind: KNOWLEDGE – “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds” (Hebrews 10:16). A. W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Our love for God grows as our knowledge of Him grows. The more we grow in our understanding of God, the more our heart beats for Him.
Remember, the Bible makes it clear that faith in God is built upon substance rooted in real evidence, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3). Our faith is indeed a “reasonable” faith that, while renewing the mind, it also recalibrates the heart, and realigns the will. Let that truth comfort and challenge you to pursue God’s call in your life regardless of the cost or circumstance.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 