Spirit-Filled Intellect
Is the diligent use of the mind contrary to being a disciple of Jesus? Isn’t it a truism that the more educated a person is the less likely they are to be a follower of Jesus? Isn’t it the strategy of the devil to get us thinking too much? Shouldn’t we therefore be suspicious of learning and relying too much on our minds? After all a simple faith in Jesus is all that really matters, right? God wants us to have a heart-knowledge of Him not a head-knowledge, doesn’t He? As a matter of fact, the phrase “head knowledge” even just sounds bad.
Well, if you want to be a follower of Jesus, you don’t have the option between head, heart and hands. You must love him and serve him with all that you are. We are commanded by Jesus to love him with all our heart, mind and strength! The same God that made your emotions made your mind as well. Just as His Spirit should fill our hearts, so should His Spirit fill our heads. The net result of such a filling is not less thinking but more and better.
One author put it this way: “In our quest for the fullness of the Spirit, we have sometimes forgotten that a Spirit-filled intelligence is one of the most powerful weapons for pulling down Satanic strongholds.” (Richard Lovelace)
Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective”.
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
~2 Corinthians 10:3-5
