As Christians, we spend too much time battling basic, elementary battles: “Am I truly saved?” “Am I really forgiven?”
The fact is, God has so much more for us.
He seeks to conform our thought-life to the actual thought-life of Christ.
Indeed, the Holy Spirit comes, not just to give us goose bumps and chills, but to restructure our attitudes and perceptions until we think the thoughts of Jesus.
Consider Paul’s remarkable insights. He wrote,
“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:14-16).
This revelation is stunning: we have the mind of Christ. God wants us to have Christ’s very discernment.
Or consider again what Paul wrote to the Galatians. He said,
“My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).
Critics will call the revelation of Christ in us a heresy, as though all we were to have was the name, but not the nature of Jesus Christ.
You see, God’s goal is not only to see us saved and go to Heaven, but for Christ to be functionally formed and living through us on earth. We are not just to have a religion about what Jesus did; we are called to possess the very substance of who Jesus is.
Yes, it means we indeed will go to Heaven; but it is more. Through our knowledge of Christ’s word and our yieldedness to the Holy Spirit, the actual person of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, gains living access to the needs of man. As His body, we give Him flesh and blood contact with this world. True, we face conflicts, but these difficulties are staged by God so He can showcase His Son through us. Indeed, we face persecution, but it’s only so Christ, in the midst of injustice, will reveal how His life overcomes death.
Again, Paul wrote,
“For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4:11).
Isn’t this exactly what you desire, the “life of Jesus . . . manifested in [your] mortal flesh”? Aren’t you tired of the cycle of judging people and then, because of pride, being judged by God in return?
What does it mean to have the mind of Christ? Does that mean we walk on the water or do great signs? Miracles are indeed a part of Christ’s life, yet there is something greater than miracles to attain: Our hearts can be filled with the redemptive, creative thought-life of God! (See 1 Corinthians 2.)
Lord, deliver us of our fleshly motives! Free us from our human instincts and fallen passions. Grant us, Lord, the motives of Jesus. Teach us to think, not as a prosecutor whose quest is to condemn, but as the Savior whose heart is to redeem.
by Francis Frangipane
Used by Permission
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