Loving God With My Mind

Edward F. Lundwall, Jr.

At the climax of a two-week of missionary conference at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, DC, God called me into His service of presenting the gospel to whoever He might lead me to. Prior to this I had been reading my Bible and felt that I needed to be baptized as a testimony of my faith in Jesus and His death, burial, and resurrection for my sins.

After an evening service, I talked to the Church’s pastor about being baptized. He invited me into his study. It was a long narrow room. He sat down at his desk at one end and I sat down in a chair at the other end. I felt that he was going to commend me for committing my life to full-time Christian service. How surprised I was when he asked me: "How do you know that you're saved?"

He was just as surprised when I quoted: 1 John 5:11, 12: "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." While my answer satisfied him and myself, it didn't satisfy God.
For three days, I was emotionally tied up in a knot. I read my Bible and prayed every moment I could, seeking the Lord for what was the problem. On the third night, I casually opened my Bible to Matthew 22:37, 38: "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." Immediately, the Holy Spirit focused my attention on the words "with all thy mind."

I had just gotten out of the Quartermasters Associate Company Officers Course. For 4 1/2 months of barracks life, I had heard all kinds of foul language in response to all kinds of frustrations. While I did not follow their bad examples, I found these words coming into my mind when I got frustrated, especially God's name. As I accepted the Holy Spirit's leading to love God with all my mind, my experience changed to peace for many days. This peace was as though I was in a row boat in the middle of a lake without a ripple of water or a breath of air. I experienced the proverbial sea of glass! Oh! What blessedness!

I didn’t realize it then, but loving God with one’s mind is the key to winning in life’s spiritual warfare: “(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 KJV