The Apostle Paul had clearly been made aware of an encounter that Jesus once had with a lawyer who tried to test him by asking, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  To which Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and great commandment.”  Paul knew that at the core of genuine and complete worship of God was the mind.  Even as he called the Romans to present their bodies as living sacrifices to God, it was the mind that he highlighted.  It is by the renewal of our minds that we will be transformed and live lives that are in accordance with God’s will, and surely a life that is good and acceptable and perfect is a life being lived according to the first and great commandment.

Have you ever considered what part your intellectual pursuits play in your faith life?  I’ve often heard people refer to themselves as “life-long learners.”  I believe that desire to continually learn and grow in our understanding of things is actually God-given.  It is given to us as a means of worshipping him properly.  I’ve caught myself creating that false dichotomy between the head and the heart, and intimating that somehow true worship happens in the heart rather than the mind.  The Bible does not seem to show that kind of split, but instead the whole body-- or to use Jesus’ own words, “the heart, soul, and mind” are to all be part and parcel of our worship of Almighty God.

So, how is your worship of God with your mind going?  Did you once have a rigorous study life when your faith was new and fresh, but it has now faded?  What are you reading?  Are you reading?  Now, this is not a call for all of us to be PhD students, but it is a call for us to be a people who seek the renewal of our minds that we may test and discern the genuine will of God.  That can be done simply by reading something that stretches us, even if only slightly.  It doesn’t always have to be Christian literature, so long as it edifies your soul.  You’ll know if it doesn’t.  

Now, I admit that I need help in doing this.  I need people to recommend good books because I don’t have time to weed through the myriad of titles out there.  I sometimes need to partner with others to hold me accountable on my reading.  Group studies bless me mightily.  I have to actually put a reading slot on my calendar every week to keep me from crowding it out with activities.  So, I understand that this call can be a challenge to many of us, but let’s not neglect this Spiritual worship.  So, to that end, here are several recommendations of good books that I’ve read recently.  I hope they’ll be a help to you as, by God’s grace, you seek to fulfill that first and great commandment.

How People Change by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee