...with all your mind,

For the past few weeks I've been using the book, Primal, by Mark Batterson to write a sermon series for the high school youth group at Western Oaks. Last Sunday was Mind Sunday. This was all about loving God with all your Mind.

"A mind stretched by a new idea never returns to its original shape." -Oliver Wendall Holmes

For years we thought that the human brain had a limit. Once you reached that limit, the more you learned, the more you lost. You could only put so much into your brain. Your brain could only grow so much. Then a few years ago, a research group in London discovered something. Your brain actually can continue to grow, in particular, your posterior hippocampus which plays a key role in long term memory.

This research group proved that our mind was created with the ability to continually grow, stretch, and learn more. God created us this way! Loving God with all your mind means taking advantage of this.

A few years back, Illinois Wesleyan (among many other colleges) did a study where they took a group of high performing juniors and gave them their final exams twice-once at the normal time, and once 2 weeks after that. Both exams were identical, but the second time students scored on average of 40% lower! It's as though they hadn't used their hippocampus at all! (Ever crammed for a test before?)

We also live in a culture where we stop corporate education around 22 years old. Our average life span is nearly 80 years though! If our mind can continue to learn, grow, and expand, why are we quitting so early!? 1 Corinthians 8:2 says "The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know." Do you think you know something?

Loving God with all your mind means that you never assume that you know something. It means that you are never satisfied with what you've already learned. It means that you constantly seek to know more. It means that you read, explore, ask questions, create, try, fail, and learn! Loving God with all your mind means that you abuse the fact that your posterior hippocampus can continue to grow!

Ask yourself this question: 'Am I really loving God with all my mind?'

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