Luke 10:27 And he answering said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength… Christ claims that God is to be loved with all our nature. They who love God, then, with the heart only, do sin. You are to love God with all your mind, with your brain, and thought, and power; with reason and with argument; with learning and knowledge. No pretence that you love God with your heart absolves you from loving Him with your mind. Did it ever strike you that being ignorant is disservice to God; so much withdrawn from the Almighty? To the degree that you refuse to study the sublime in nature: to that degree I have no pity for your ignorance. It is a failure in your service; a coldness in your love to God. If you love God with all your mind you will do what you do when you love a great author. You may say, "Of all authors I think Shakespeare the greatest; but I have never read one of his plays, never studied one of his sonnets." Indeed I what do you do, then, to show your love to Shakespeare? "Oh, I talk about him." He who loves an author well, turns his pages again and again; weighs his words and marks their construction. If he reads the "Merchant of Venice," he studies it attentively, and proposes to himself to go back to his labour of love again and again. I don't know who is your darling; but I know it is the anther with whom you are most familiar. And that is what loving God with all your mind is. The three great volumes of God which you should study are before every one of you: Nature, History, and the Bible. (George Dawson.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. |
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