From my Facebook note: by Benjamin Lau on Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 2:06am
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. Romans 6:17
Was reading Martyn Lloyd Jones book on "Spiritual Depression" and he raise this point about the sequence of our approach to God which got me intrigued. He shared his views on why the order needs to be via the Mind,Heart & Will. And it does make sense of what he said, That we should first hear the Truth. Which is where the understanding of the mind comes in. And the heart is always to be influenced through the understanding. He added on that the heart should not be approached directly first as if it may lead to an "emotional" response to God which derives from themselves. And if the sequence is via listening to The Truth first (understanding of it by the mind), it will lead to one responding by his/her heart, followed by his/her will to act upon the Truth!
And I thought it all makes sense as this is how I've been seeing it too if you read my previous note on "What is the Great Commission". E.g. We should first hear & understand the Truth of The Great Commission (Mind), and by seeing & catching this vision of the big picture of God's plan for us, our heart response to it (This is where The Holy Spirit will empower us to understand it as well as makes us that effective witnesses of God which is also the Truth (Heart), and this leads to the act of our Will to want to fulfill that Great Commission, to make disciples and to witness the others with our life! (Will)
And the interesting thing after reading the above extract of Martyn Lloyd Jones book, on the same day, I came across this book on "the Holy Spirit" at TECMAN Bookshop by Reinhard Bonnke. And what caught my attention was there was this quote that was so similar to the above view of the mind,heart & will. Just that the order & definition is a bit different. But yet still following a similar concept of combining the 3 of Mind,Heart & Will. Just that this time its place in "Heart, Mind & Will" order.
"God work in this life through people only. A heart of Faith (HEART),a mind to plan(MIND), and a hand to work (WILL) always attract the power of the Holy Spirit" -Reinhard Bonnke.
Although the context of the above statement by Reinhard Bonnke has a slight difference & its not totally fair to compare both, i guess it to some extent it also clearly shows on which side of the spectrum we stand on either the reform side (Alot on the Mind) or the other extreme end of the charismatic (alot on the Heart). At the end of the day, i personally feel we need both equally. The order may not be that important although a part of me believe more to what Martyn Lloyd Jones said as that is a more conservative approach, yet, i would say based on personal experience. My understanding (mind) of the Truth was very weak previously, and it was what got me in the (Heart), which was my encounter with being "Filled with the Spirit" that led me to understand much more of the Christian Faith and what it means to be a True Witness of Christ, and this was what led to the actions of my belief (Will). So in some way the order was still mind, heart & will. But a lot of the emphasis i would say was on my Heart. Was it emotional? I would say yes, but I can boldly say it was not from myself, as i really believe the Holy Spirit gave me that personal experience of God aka "The Strangely Warm experience" which compelled me to want to search & understand more of His Truth personally to validate that experience and find out more about this God of mysteries.
So what do you all think?
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