hearts and minds

When do you know that you're really in love with someone?  I think a good test is when you can't seem to get that person off your mind because he or she fills your heart and your heart keeps feeding your mind.  I think that the book of Hebrews is teaching us that God ultimately wanted to have a "hearts and minds" kind of love relationship with His people.  He already seems to have them in His heart and always on His mind.  From the beginning He showed His love by making man in His own image.  And we have seen Bible characters who have had this "heart and mind" relationship with God through faith, including Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Joseph and Moses.  The old covenant with its sacrificial system reminded the people of Israel of their sins but couldn't provide a permanent solution.  And that system didn't establish the "heart and mind" bond God ultimately wanted.  But when God gave His Son as a perfect life and a perfect sacrifice He rebuilt the bridge to intimacy that He had begun in the Garden of Eden.  We walk across that bridge when we acknowledge, in our heart, that Jesus' died and lives for us personally.  And when we do that we find that God, Himself, fills our heart and feeds our mind and the love relationship is established!

Hebrews 8:10 

But this is the new covenant I will make
    with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds,
    and I will write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.

Hebrews 10:15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says,

16 "This is the new covenant I will make
    with my people on that day, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
    and I will write them on their minds."

17 Then he says,

"I will never again remember
    their sins and lawless deeds."

blessings,

Rob Smith