Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Matthew 10:26-28
Respect the One that Can Destroy the Soul
26 “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
John 14:15-21
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
John 15:26-27
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
John 16:12-15
Our Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
1 John 4:8
God is LOVE
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Genesis 1:27
God Created Us in His Image
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Believers want to follow God's commandments, and Jesus gives us the two great commandments from God...They are about LOVE...We are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all of our minds...And we are to love our neighbors...We are to use our mind, our hearts, and our Spirit in our lives...Our mind can judge facts well, and our hearts can bring us to love...The heart also seems to be the centerpiece of our Spirit...Jesus talks often about our heart...And when we think of eternal life our soul, (the soul) seems like an energy that remains eternal, along with our Spirit...There is mystery in this, and a great mystique...And there is so much emotion and feeling in these two great commandments, because they are about LOVE...
Sometimes I think our society has abandoned reason for feeling...We now are often reasoning, and finding our reasoning by how we feel...And I must admit that often I be included in this group...It seems the culture of TV, movies, and marketing work to make us stay focused on how we feel...And if this is true and remains true, then our societies and others will eventually be led by our feelings, instead of by reason than by truth...We will vote and choose those things we want, by how we feel and what we think we need, instead of voting and getting at the truth or even near the truth...Is it possible that one day our world will be ruled by our feelings and how each of us collectively feel as a group, instead of listening and believing in the Truth and our own rational reasoning power?...Could logic become less over time?...There are great problems in this...God has given us both the power of reason and the power of our emotions...Reason comes from the rational mind and emotion comes from the emotional heart...Said a different way, we can rationally reason through things, and we can emotionally feel things...And we are to love God with our hearts, and our minds, and our souls...It is possible that our feelings can take us only so far, but it is equally possible that reason can take us only so far as we seek the Truth...Reason and emotions (our feelings) are both two important parts of us...
We look at truths and facts mostly, with our minds...Jesus is Truth...We can rationally get to this fact, if we read the gospels in an open-hearted way...And for the actual eyewitnesses that met and saw Him, the met this Truth, the historical Jesus...When they saw Him do miraculous things, they surely wondered and reasoned what was He doing......And besides both hearing Him and seeing Him, He taught His followers about faith, hope, and love...We look at love and faith and hope with our hearts and our souls...Somehow, we must use our minds, our hearts and our souls to have a good life and find the Truth...When we do this we can better follow the two great commandments...
Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit...The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth...Jesus teaches that the Holy Spirit lives in each of us, and will continue to be with us...The work of the Holy Spirit is to testify about Jesus...We testify for Jesus by believing in His Word...The Holy Spirit comes from God...The Holy Spirit sometimes testifies by His Name...When a non-believer hears about Jesus, they wonder and think can He be true, and can He be the Absolute Truth...Can I believe in those things I have heard Him do and say?...An idea and a thought is sparked, and moves us, and nudges us with hearing His Name...The Holy Spirit is called the Truth, the Spirit of Truth...The Holy Spirit guides us to this Truth...Believers will receive from the Holy Spirit -things from Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will make Jesus better known to us -if we listen for Him...
Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and that He will guide us into all Truth...Jesus did not say the Holy Spirit would guide us into our feelings and emotions...He did not say I would have this great feeling when the Holy Spirit was working in me...No, He said the Holy Spirit will lead me and guide me to the Truth and testify about Truth...It is up to me to accept the Truth, His Truth...
For me the Holy Spirit is explained and written about in a much more objective way, than a subjective way...To me the Holy Spirit is open-minded, fair-minded and an unbiased Spirit, guiding us to the Truth...The Holy Spirit, as I read about Him, seems less based on our personal feelings and is less influenced by feelings...Yet, for some "reason", I "feel" that Jesus is near us...I feel that there is a need for Him to be nearby...And Jesus somehow can change people's lives, even though He is not here physically...He impacts the believer's life and the whole world around by His very nature, and by His Holy Spirit...And God gave us feelings, so we would not be robotic-like...So instead of always using reasoning only with our minds, we would also look into our hearts...I also feel if I abandon my feelings completely, and only look at reason, then I am much like a non-believing scientist, who with his rational and reasonable experiments believing that God can only be found in his non-emotional experiments...God, who is LOVE, must be emotional, since He is LOVE...God must want me to feel emotions, since He is LOVE and I am made in His image...
That being said the Truth is of the utmost importance...We must listen to this Truth, that we are being guided to...For it is from the Truth, we find both goodness and morality...We find God in this Truth...In goodness and morality, we can find emotions and feelings...In the world, the more and more we focus on our personal individual feelings and how we feel, the less we feel and care about others...The feeling of the moment rules...When goodness and morality get completely wrapped up in how we individually feel about ourselves and how we want to feel, things go amiss...When we only concern ourselves with our own feelings, then the truth can easily get overlooked...But when we are completely focused on Truth, and God is the central part of our lives, then our feelings come and flow naturally, and work properly...When our spiritual muscles get worked, and our soul gets a workout...Using our heart and our souls together is an important part of us, and an important part of life...Our feelings are better expressed and our lives are lived according to the way our Father and Creator planned them...