Intro to this Issue
This issue focuses on the Christian mind and how the Lord wants to renew and transform our minds from a secular stronghold to a place inhabited by the Spirit of God. Scripture commands us to love God with all one’s mind and to love his truth – especially the truth of his word and will for our lives.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
(Matthew 22:37, RSV)
“I have laid up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
(Psalm 119:11)
“Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love.”
(Psalm 119:159)
“Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day”
Psalm 119:97
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
(Romans 12:2)
Servas Pincaers describes how truth is necessary for growth in maturity and relationships:
Truth insists on being loved, sought, and served for its own sake, to the point of setting aside self-interest, even risking life itself if need be. Its nature is therefore disinterested; yet it interests us in the highest degree and attracts us powerfully, for there is no true good without it.
Love of truth is an integral part of the human personality and assures its dignity. As persons we are beings-for-the-truth; if the spirit of lying takes possession of us,we suffer an interior wound. We are no longer free if in our hearts we do not love and seek the truth. Inevitably, we become the slaves of causes, passions, or ideas which lead us to deceitfulness. Without loveof truth, we lose our last foothold, the foundation on which to build a personal life.
Love of truth goes hand in hand with a sense of objectivity. Not the cold, impersonal objectivity of the positivist sciences, but the human sense of the reality of persons and things, which opens the door of their interiority to us. Once we accept their difference from ourselves, objectivitylays the foundation for the love of friendship. Through this profound objectivity, truth reveals itself to love.
Love and truth are thus naturally linked in the most personal action and encounter each other at the heart of freedom. Education in freedom will be at the same time education in truth and love. Thus all the moral values and virtues will be illumined and penetrated by our love of truth.
The Sources of Christian Ethics
May this issue deepen our understanding of loving God with our minds, and loving his word for our lives, and the practical steps we can take to grow in the knowledge, wisdom, and strength of the Lord.
Sincerely in Christ,
Don Schwager
Editor
Top image credit: illustration of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in the Scriptures, © by Kevin Carden
Don Schwager is the editor of Living Bulwark and author of the Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation website. He is a lay religious brother and life-time member of the Servants of the Word.
Thank you so much. With great humbleness,Toni Underwood
So inspiring