Heart, Mind, and Soul

Evi, I'm glad you posted this. I'll write down somewhat of my thoughts...not saying I am right by any means, but these are the ways I loosely defined each:

Mind: mental, thoughts, where logic and reason and thinking occur, understanding and knowledge
Heart: feelings and emotions, where deepness/depth is, where love is, what can guide your decisions regarding love and relationships
Soul: spiritual self, the part of you that remains constant and forever, eternal, what allows you to feel moved in the spirit

How I can honor God with my mind:
1) Not worry about the future or His plans
2) Use school and what I know for His glory
3) Not think impure thoughts
4) Learn more about Him by reading His word
5) To listen to others and truly listen, getting to know them more deeply

How I can honor God with my heart:
1) Guard my heart and hide it in Him
2) To be patient as I wait for His chosen mate for me
3) to love Him above any human being or thing of this world
4) To be merciful and have a heart for the poor, sick, underprivileged, and hurting
5) To be selfless and put others before myself

How to honor God with my soul:
1) to pursue Him daily by prayer and being in the Word
2) to spend time with Him everyday, intentionally
3) to listen to music that is uplifting, and feed my soul with uplifting things
4) to consider my soul as more important than my body image
5) to fall in love with Him and continually give thanks for Him for all things

These are just some ways for me personally that I can do to honor the Lord with these three parts.

An interesting thing about this commandment-- to love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind-- is to recognize that on earth, as humans, we will never fully reach this in perfection. We will only be made perfect in Him and in loving Him with these three things when we are joined with Him in eternity. However, in the meantime, our purpose on earth should be to strive towards this greatest commandment of all...to aim to honor God with all things and in all things. It's funny how we forget this commandment and it's meaning and the depth of it...but it also goes to show that we will never be made perfect until that glorious day that we will see Him face to face! And that is a comfort, in a strange way, because it allows us to not become stagnant and think we are ever doing enough to glorify God. It allows us to constantly be striving towards Him and not staying in a state of complacency by thinking we are good enough and that we are the best Christian around...we will never get there. But in this idea as well, grace is key...we can't beat ourselves up for the fact that we will never get to that point of perfection in loving Him on earth. We can't beat ourselves up when we fall short or sin or forget to spend time with God some day. I know I have fallen victim to this in the past, thinking I had to reach some sort of standard in order to be made right with God, when really He loves me all the time, no matter what. Our striving towards God needs to be with God as our focus, not ourselves. It shouldn't be to make ourselves look better or seem better to the world, or to show others how much we love God if we do A, B, C....but it should be focused on GOD HIMSELF, that all we do to honor Him with our heart, soul, and mind should be, well, to honor Him! And bring Him glory and to love Him! When we take ourselves out of the center, and stop focusing on making ourselves look better and feeling better about ourselves when we do things to honor God, it will be so much more about Him and will bring Him much more glory. Do all things for Him and Him alone...we all need to keep our motives in check.