Jesus said that the first and the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.

Since Jesus said this was the GREATEST of all the commandments, shouldn’t we do our very best to obey the greatest commandment. And in not keeping the greatest commandment wouldn’t that be the greatest disobedience?

What Does It Mean To Love God?

To love God is to serve Him.

To love God is to obey Him.

To love God is to pattern ourselves after Him.

If you love me, you will obey what I command. (John 14:15)

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching...he who does not love me will not obey my teaching. (John 14:23-24)

Jesus said that proof of our love for Him or lack of love is whether or not we obey Him.

Part of obeying God is to trust Him to tell us the truth - that’s what faith is - trusting Him alone for the truths of life and salvation.

There are lot’s of people in this world who want people to believe a lie which they claim is the truth. When people believe that lie and trust their eternal salvation in that lie, they have not obeyed God by loving Him with their mind - and they will find themselves in the eternal torment of hell as a result.

CHECK IT OUT!

True faith is always built on knowledge. Often in the Old Testament, God would ask the people, “Do you not know?” (Ezekiel 17:12) The same thing in the New Testament baffles Jesus when He says, “You are in error becauseyou do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)

Obviously God wants us to know the Scriptures and to test with the Scriptures whatever any human being tells us. God does not want us to place our faith and trust others blindly but to use our minds, our logic, our thinking facilities to discover if what we are being taught is really true:

...they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11)

In great error, many people come to a wrong conclusion between emotional-heart trust and head knowledge. Our trust and faith can be real, it can be strong and unmoveable - but it can be in the wrong object and is often based on mere feelings. If your faith is in the wrong object or the wrong way to salvation, you will be eternally wrong! That’s a very scary and dangerous place to be. It doesn’t matter how you feel about something, all that matters is whether or not it is true. Just because it “feels” right doesn’t mean it is right.

Loving God with all our mind means we test what our leaders teach us. We check out what our parents taught us. We examine the evidence to find out if what they have said is really true! That’s what the Bible says to do. God tells us we are to test everything, and hold on only to the truth! If we do not obey Him by testing what people tell us, we are not loving Him with all our mind - therefore are breaking the greatest commandment.

HAS THE THINKING ALREADY BEEN DONE FOR YOU?

God created us with a brain. He put lots of good stuff in the brain to function better than any super-duper computer mankind will ever put together. God wants us to use the brain power He has so graciously given us. He has commanded us to read His Word, test the prophets, test the spirits to discover for ourselves if we are being told the truth.

For instance: If you’ve been taught that when you die you can become a god among many other gods, that you will have your own worlds and progress eternally, you will immediately know that it isn’t true just by checking out what the Bible says about other gods:

Isaiah 44:8 Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.

Isaiah 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me:

Isaiah 45:6 I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Isaiah 45:18 ...I am the LORD; and there is none else.

Isaiah 45:21 ...and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.

Isaiah 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

Isaiah 46:9 ...for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

The above passages clearly teach us that there is only one God anywhere, everywhere, ever! To add the word “of this world” is cheating and making the Scriptures say what it does NOT say or mean. You will know then, that anyone who teaches otherwise is teaching you a lie and you can ignore the teaching and the teacher.

There are some people who say that when the leaders have spoken, they have done your thinking for you. That you are to obey your leaders without question because they will never lead you astray.

That sounds pretty good but is designed to put fear against individualized thinking. It shuts out the possibility of gaining knowledge on your own and searching out for yourself what the Bible says to see if what they are teaching you is true.

If anyone tells you that, remember to love the Lord your God with all your mind. You can do that by ignoring what anyone tells you that does not line up exactly with what the Bible teaches.

When it comes to religious things, we are not to be “open minded.” We are to find out the truth, then totally close your mind to all error. Satan has a fine way of making a lie sound so good that you would never know it wasn’t the truth. The only way to test the truth against his lies, is to read the Bible which is where God has promised us the Truth would be.

John 14:6 “Jesus said, “I am the way, the TRUTH and the life, no man cometh unto the Father except by Me.”

Since Jesus is the TRUTH, then to know the truth is to study Jesus Christ. It is a very dangerous thing for us to resist or ignore the truth of God. God has told us that if we continue our life without gaining the knowledge of Him and His will for us, it is the same thing as rejecting Him and He in turn will reject us and our children.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee… seeing thou hast forgotten the law of they God, I will also forget thy children.
(Hosea 4:6)

Do you want that to happen to you?

The Bible warns us that Satan appears as an “angel of light”:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ…and no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
(2 Corinthians 11:13-14)

If Satan can and does transform himself into an angel of light, it is obvious that he has the power to make his lies seem like truth. God knew this and knew the only way to counteract Satan’s deceit was to fill His Bible with the trustworthiness of everlasting TRUTH - and that’s exactly what He did!

Sin dehumanizes us, Satan wants us dehumanized by rejecting God’s truths and believing in what “people” say rather than what God has said. Don’t trust in what your leaders say unless it matches up exactly with what the Bible says. Read the Bible and discover its wonderful truths. Study to show yourself approved:

2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

God is the only One you are to love and obey with all your heart, mind, soul and strength - no human ever deserves that kind of loyalty.

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