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Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV)

How do we love God with our mind? This isn’t about intellectual assent to beliefs about God but rather using our mind to love God. Maybe that seems odd. We often say we love with our heart and think with our mind. Yet our minds encounter and process both thoughts and feelings. Our minds give shape to what we say and how we act.

We know how to put our minds to use in service of school or work. May we discover anew how to engage our minds in service of loving God.

Listen

Instead, renew the thinking in your mind by the Spirit and clothe yourself with the new person created according to God’s image in justice and true holiness.

Ephesians 4:23-24

Think

Have you ever gotten dressed, looked in the mirror and thought, “I look beautiful”? Or put on workout clothes and said to yourself, “I feel strong”? Or maybe you have felt proud of your abilities and chosen clothes to wear that reinforced your feeling.

Sometimes we put on clothes that help us feel what we’re not yet sure we really are. Sometimes we know who we are, and we get dressed to show on the outside what we feel inside.

What would you put on to show your mind is renewed by the Spirit? What would you wear to demonstrate you are a new person made in God’s image?

If it’s hard to think of pieces of clothing, like a shirt or jacket, that reflect the renewal of your mind and heart, I wonder if there is something you can put on — as concrete as a bracelet or tattoo or as metaphorical as an image or attitude — that would be a symbol of your desire to love God with your mind?

Ann Deibert

Pray

God of my heart, I offer you the love of my mind. Use me to transform the world with your love. Amen.

Go

God loves your mind. God loves you.

Invite God to renew and transform your mind to love God and your neighbor.

Then go in peace and share that great love.