According to John 4, God is looking for people who will worship him with the entirety of their being: intellect, emotions, will, and everything. As John Piper puts it, “The reality of God and his work is so great that we are not merely to think truly about it, but also feel duly about it. Think truly and feel duly – that is, feel with the kind and depth and intensity of emotion that is appropriate to the reality that is truly known.
A great model of this kind of balance is Blaise Pascal. Considered to be one of the greatest minds in Western history, Pascal was a brilliant mathematician, inventor, and physicist of the 17th century. He had a dramatic introduction to Jesus when he was 32, and wrote this in his journal:
“Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. Joy, joy, joy, oceans of joy!”
He carried these words in his pocket for the rest of his short life. He died at 39.