10 Minutes
There is no other mind but the divine mind of God. At creation our mind was one with the One Divine Mind. And because God is all-in-all, we are of His mind. God is the word, the name given to our source who is above and beyond all names and who, in the purest sense, we know as absolute truth and absolute divine love. Like drops of water in the ocean, our minds are individual components of this singular mind. In truth, there is no separation between what we experience as our mind and the mind of God. This is the eternal thought of God that possesses all the divine potentials we will ever experience. One of the primary purposes of the word of God, because God is our creator and He is infinite, is to reveal the true source of individuality. As a pattern of this one mind, our individualized mind extends the spiritual attributes of the One Mind into creation, giving it form. Our mind, individualized and without boundaries, manifests particular expressions of the divine mind. He will leave the ninety and nine to search for the one. The person that we are, with all our uniqueness, exists for the glory of Christ and the glory of God. Followers of Jesus are called to find their identity in him. Our true identity is ultimately based on what God has done in us. In Christ, we are loved. We were created with a purpose. We are not just a convenient carbon copy of someone else. We were created uniquely and with intention. God lovingly designed every detail of our person. Can you imagine the love involved with that intricate design? Christ in us makes us not only loved but chosen. God sent His own Son to earth to die in our place so that we could be included in His family. God was not obligated to choose us based on our performance or credentials. He chose to carry out an intricate plan that involved the death of His own perfect Son, which allowed us the opportunity to be a child of God. In order to be counted a child of the perfect Father, we had to be free of sin. That is, we had to be perfect with regard to doing right and not doing wrong. That is an impossibility on our part considering our nature. But Jesus was perfectly sinless for us in his life and is perfectly sinless for us when we come to justification by faith in him. Not one of us can attain perfection by our own effort. We are individually justified in Christ alone. Because Jesus, who was without sin, died the second death for us if we cease to sin, we can be forgiven of sin, otherwise the penalty will be due us. All that Christ did, all that Christ is, was accounted for us.
This forgiveness allows us to be considered a child of God. Therefore, in God’s eyes, if we have accepted what Jesus did for us, we are completely forgiven. From His perspective, we are without sin. It’s not that we won’t sin, but when He looks at us, He calls us forgiven knowing our faith in Jesus. That is something on which we can build our identity. God wants us to understandthis for ourself by studying His Word. It is so important that we go to the word of God to find out how He thinks about us. Our identity should never be based on a hope or a guess. God gave us His Word, written, so we can know Him and know who He is making us to be in Him. We can be God’s righteousness. We are His goodness and rightness because of what Christ did on the cross. This allows us to be an ambassador to others around us. Because our righteousness is not earned but freely given through faith in Jesus, we can share this gift with others and invite them to be God’s righteousness too. With the likeness of a divine mind and a divine heart as someone who is forgiven, we can now freely forgive others. God’s extended grace is undeserved favor to us. We can extend that grace to others around us.
A divine mind does not align with mental faculties alone. We have heard the saying, think before you speak. Why, in moments of strong emotion or ignorance, words that do not edify are weaponized. The biblical concept of the heart is broader than love and affection. The bible reasons that the heart and the head are combining elements of mind, will, fundamental commitments, hope, trust. What the heart trusts, the mind justifies, the emotions desire, and the will carries out. If our heart actually includes how we think in our mind and behave along with how we feel, then the expression of this collective wholeness demonstrates the composition of our desires through our words, habits, and behaviors. The words that flow from our lips are a sample of the content that lies within our hearts. In this we should come to realize the godliness in Christ that patterns both a divine mind and a divine heart...divinity garbed in humanity. Without the guiding of the Holy Spirit our own desires, affections, thoughts, and actions are bent toward sin at all times but by the grace of God. When the word of truth is heard by the natural mind, the carefully guarded “christian façade” will be exposed through the words that are spoken impulsively without thought reflection.
Conviction and faith by the Spirit, and redemption through Jesus, causes the natural heart state to being transformed to the spiritual seeking to put to death the desires of the flesh and direct our hearts and minds toward the Spirit. Jesus’ teaching on this point is not that we must will ourselves toward holiness, but that it is through relationship with him that the desires of our heart are transformed, cleansing the outward expression of our hearts through our words and actions to now reflect him in place of our attempt to gain advantage, which entice us and drag us away. A divine mind and a divine heart are vital to this kind of creative discernment. The functioning of this capacity to discern actually happens through the unity of mind and heart because without love, there would be no compassion or sensitivity to the mind’s discernment.
Understanding the capacity of both mind and heart presents the experience of the transformation of life to a loving desire to know truth bringing life into the process of revelation. Here’s how the Holy Spirit guides the mind into all truth. The moment we make a right judgment, we are seeing an implication, which reveals another possibility of experience or another dimension of knowingness. In this we are acknowledging God to be the source of all that is right. We are all living in God’s mind; we are creations of God’s mind, contents of God’s mind. And it is in this capacity that we can trust that God, as the One Divine Mind, is forever imparting all the wisdom we need. We can be confident that whatever answer we need is His word and we can receive it as we humbly hear what the Spirit says. We are being conformed to the image of His Son not only to reason upon God's thoughts expressed in His word, but to ask God for that which we need. That requires the examining of our heart and the evoking of our thoughts, which happens when God's Word becomes the orienting center of our common existence as His people, shaping our very perception of things as we have spiritual consideration about them. Our being transformed is an intricate process commencing from conversion that requires active attentiveness to avoid “careless” or “useless” words slithering out at times when our diligence wains or our flesh wins.
When truth overwhelms the natural mind, our willpower and capacity to resist temptation is impaired. It is in this time that our prayers ask God to allow the Holy Spirit to isolate our consciousness acknowledging that the Holy Spirit works on our behalf to give words and interpretation to our groanings. A divine mind and a divine heart work to promote a constant vigilance and care of our whole self. We reorient our mind, our heart toward God.
With Christ in us there is loving power with a divine heart. We all have sinned and will still often remember our sins, and those memories can make us feel unworthy, keeping us from accepting our true identity. We know what we have done; we may also remember what people have done to us. Maybe we were mistreated at some time or another like as was Jesus. Maybe someone rumored an untruth thing about us like they did about Jesus. The world is broken by sin. There are people who have experienced unspeakable injustice. From gossip to verbal and physical abuse, outside messages are trying to shape our identity every day. Those outside messages can lead you to believe that you are unworthy of what the word says is true of you in Christ. How do we respond? We forgive. Our spiritual individuality is substanced in Christ.
Do you recall how the first man’s mind was in complete agreement with the mind of God? With this knowledge, please do not balk at the idea that God is the only true source of intelligence and identity, that He is the actual Mind of each individual, including ourself. We realize that most people don't often act as if God is their Mind. And all having the same mind...what would happen to individuality? Mentality is influenced more by carnal thinking than by a divine mind, but that is not the ultimate reality of things. You have a choice to reason carnally or spiritually. Whichever you choose, God is the true source of all intelligence and all wisdom, and He knows your thought even before you were born. Knowing that, and because God desires all to be saved, He has designed a distinct path that expresses your capabilities...let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Jesus' profound sense of individuality and effectiveness was not limited by his turning to God as his only mind. Jesus' dependence on God was responsible for his every decision, his every choice. Dependence on God is true wisdom. When our true identity is God's spiritual image, then our individuality is expressed in the true expression and recognition of Jesus’ unique contribution...he became flesh, sinful flesh like as we have and did no sin that we might by reason of a divine mind cease to sin like as he never did. God created our inmost being. And He filled us with ways to deepen an intimate relationship with Him. The divine mind is to be the fount of wisdom flowing with the spirit filled sensitivity of the Holy Spirit. This sensitivity is the maturity of the divine mind and the divine heart. With this sensitivity the mind, the heart focuses on hearing from God, then we will hear words from Him that others will not pick up.
We will have such a closeness of relationship, a willingness to “not miss a word” that God speaks to us, to demonstrate a priority to Who comes first in our lives. We will have “God opportunities” come to us that, when acted upon, will cause us to be more effective and fruitful than the norm. The divine mind makes clear the purpose for which Christ became us. It is so we can know what it is to be filled, led, used more effectively, in those things that can impact people in time that will last throughout all eternity. God desires us to become more and more mature in His purposes so that we have the joy of being led by the Holy Spirit. Being led by the Spirit is the evidence that we are the sons and daughters of the Living God. Sons and daughters do what their Heavenly Father wills for them, because His love acquaints us with His divine essence, His perfections, plan, and His sovereign right to command and direct our lives.
Galatians 4:6
Σχόλια