Mindful Love

What is the most popular symbol for love?

The heart.

We see it when Justin Bieber sings.

We see it when we buy someone Valentines candy.

We see it when a Jr High girl writes I heart ______.

It’s found in the phrase I love you with all of my heart.

But according to Jesus, the heart should not be the only symbol for love... there is also the brain. Chocolate shaped brains don’t sound quite as appealing (unless its a zombie themed party, that might make sense).

I’m going to quote the first part of the Shema, a Jewish prayer that was repeated three times a day:

Deuteronomy 6:5

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Now listen to the way Jesus quotes this verse

Luke 10: 27

He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."

What phrase does Jesus add to the daily prayer?

Love the Lord our God with all of our mind.

A question I have been asking myself this week is, what does it mean to love God with my mind?

Do I need to read commentaries before bed?

Memorize an entire book of the bible?

Know obscure bible trivia?

Enjoy the "begot" sections?

To love God with our mind is to allow His thoughts to shape our thoughts.

Human beings were created to think, reflect, reason, observe, question.

In fact, homo sapient means "reasoning being." Now, maybe you’ve met people who didn’t have a whole lot of common sense. Youtube would have never become popular if people only acted intelligently. But we were created with a sky high capacity to think imagine, question, reason.

We are challenged to "Love the Lord your God with all of your mind."

What are you doing to allow God’s thoughts to shape your thoughts these days?