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Lent Reflection- Day 5- Love God with All Your Heart

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Text: Mark 12:30a “Love the Lord your God with all your heart”

Love is the heart of the Christian faith. Loving God with all our hearts is the focus thought, and suggested way of being today. As Christians, we are commanded by our Lord to “love the Lord your God with all your heart”. Most of us are familiar with this command but find it difficult to live it out. With God’s help, may it go from our head to our heart. The heart that is being referenced here is not the one that pumps blood to keep us alive.  It is the area of your brain where we make decisions, our why ba!sed on our gut, not emotions.

Decision-making and the ability to explain those decisions exist in different parts of the brain. This is where gut decisions come from. They just feel right. Our limbic brain is powerful, powerful enough to drive behaviors that sometimes contradict our rational and analytical understanding of a decision. We often trust our gut even if the decision flies in the face of all the facts and figures. Richard Restak, a well-known neuroscientist, talks about this in his book The Naked Brain.

To love God with all your heart, means to allow your thought process and decision making to be influenced by the word of God. To love God with all your heart is to allow your feelings and emotions to be organized and controlled by the Spirit of God.

In this period of Lent may we all allow the word of God and the Spirit of God to order our thoughts, decisions, feelings and emotions. May our lives be a source of inspiration to many.

 

Reflection: What influences your decision making process? How will you allow the word of God to order your thoughts, feelings and emotions?

Reading: Mark 12:28-34

 

Submitted by: Lonnell and Denise Jackson

New Life International UMC