The New Testament teaches us, first and foremost, to love our Lord and God.
In Matthew Jesus says,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)
Luke adds, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” (Luke 10:27)
Does this mean the heart comes first?
A common thread among non-Christian mystics is, indeed, that the heart is first when seeking to understand the mysteries.
But this kind of “understanding” leads to truth being relative.
This is why we find that, among the Christian mystics, the opposite has always been true. The mind is first.
Which leads to an “understanding” that is anchored in the sublime teaching of Christ and His Moral Law.
It is to this kind of understanding that we as Christians are called.
Indeed, are we not called upon in our faith to bring every thought unto obedience to Christ?
To let the mind of Christ be in us?
So why, then, does our Lord start the first and great commandment with the heart?
Simple. Because if our confession of faith only remains in the mind, and never makes its way into our hearts, then our confession of faith is naught.
So rather than our Lord saying in the first and great commandment that we must start in the heart, he is telling us this is where it all ends.
At the same time He’s telling us that the mind, or discernment, leads the way to a loving heart.
This is why “the mind” is last in the listing. The last (the mind) shall be first, and the first (the heart) shall be last.
This distinction between the Christian mystic and all others is the difference between a true reverence for God, the One who fills all things, and the false seeking of a “oneness” with, what turns out to be, “nothingness”.
Now consider carefully this concept: That “nothingness” must be the goal when the “heart” comes before the “mind”.
For the heart, apart from the mind, can not know its way. And so the “way” must be “nothing”.
The mind, though, can discern right from wrong, giving the heart a compass by which to know the direction for its tendency to loving kindness.
This is why all “love” is not equal to the Christian.
And why Christ spent so much time teaching what “true love” really is.
And what is it?
True love is that shown through the mind of Christ.
Dispassionate love that leads to the greatest passion. In Christ’s case, all the way to the passion of the Cross.
As we like to note…
For those of us who are saved, and are committed to amending our ways. We are those called to this sort of love. To conforming our lives to the life Christ so perfectly modeled during His earthly ministry.
And this is the very thing we help you do here with my Essential Spiritual Fitness Program.
Provide the ways and means for entering into dispassionate love that leads to the greatest passion through the mysteries of God, the Gospel, and Creation.
Centered on the revelation of Christ. The manifestation of God among men.
What we sometimes call “Training through The Mysteries of God in Christ.”
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https://spiritualfitnessprogram.com/membership/makingitreal/
You can further your growth using my Essential Spiritual Fitness Program by enrolling in my Faith-Without-Confusion Online Course by clicking the following link:
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God Bless!
Coach Paul
‘Feel, Do, and Be Better!‘