We are to understand God’s plan for His people in the world to bring glory to Himself, to restore in the heart, in the mind, the cause for creation to its intended splendor, and provide salvation for all. It would be all to God’s glory if we could do this, as though sin was never a thought. But knowing the reality of truth, sin is real. And so, we do this by regaining the possession of harmony by atoning for our faults through the life of Jesus. It means we identify with Christ’s purpose “to seek and to save what was lost.” It means we share Jesus’ perspective of humility and obedience, compassion, and prayerful dependence on God. We must have a maturity to love unitedly in spirit, being humble in our thinking to express that love.
God knows His people who are moving forward in, and of the faith of Jesus. These do not squander the power of the Spirit by looking back at past relationships, memories, failures, temptations, or anything that might distract them from their mindful focus on being the called, the chosen of God. They instead consider these experiences as nurturing ground that enriches their learning. Our conforming to Jesus is to be sought in every experience. With uncompromising determination our desire is to gain Christ. There is this phenomenon, that where your eyes are focused is where you tend to go. Our citizenship is in heaven and we look forward to going home and seeing our Father face-to-face. There is a strong, valued commitment to truth that reveals who we are and what we believe. It is with this mind, that reasoning with God gives us a truth to base certain decisions on in advance, irrespective of the circumstances, trusting the consequences to God.
Jesus determined ahead of time to submit his will to his Father, trusting God to embrace his faith. Consider the marvel of how our lowliness of mind can remove selfish ambitions and empty pride, bringing in a deeper sense of humility, empowering us to make an honest evaluation of our great need for forgiveness. And with forgiveness comes the responsible use of the freedom granted. And with this freedom comes the presence of the Holy Spirit, and our capitulation and surrendering to God come as the result of the Holy Spirit working in our life. This is God underscoring our faith. We have His favor and salvation. He longs to use us to restore others. We are His hands; we are His feet. We are the mareh and we must show up for God. We speak His words and lives are changed. Let us prayerfully study the word of God to create a deep desire to be a transformed people, and fulfill the task God has given us by ministering and serving others with joy, and living to the glory of God. Let us humbly ask for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we can be transformed to God’s image, reflect His character, and be empowered by the Lord’s Spirit to fulfill God’s vision and task He is giving us. Let’s pray for the daily baptism of the Holy Spirit that He can do His work for us, in us, around us and through us. And it is with this mind that we realize our greatest need is Jesus Christ. The uniqueness of the mind of Christ is that he is one equal with God, being in the form of God. We must understand the context of “let this mind be in you”. Jesus was willing to give up something as well as be obedient and submissive to His Father. He gave up the full glory of God to become a human. He willingly committed to being the sacrifice for all human sin. Jesus knew what the plan was. He had confidence in the plan, and he agreed with it. Jesus knew the mind of His Father, and the Father knew his! The bible speaks to the relationship with Jesus and His Father. There is consolation in Christ.
II Corinthians 1:3
God, who has known suffering from the inside, in Jesus, and who thus provides comfort for all who are afflicted and empowers us to console others. Attributes of this relationship are: comfort of love, fellowship of the Spirit, affection and mercy, the fulfillment of joy, being of one accord, of one mind. The same conditions are needed for us to make a good relationship with the Father, with Jesus. Jesus chose to give up the very height of all power to suffer, to sacrifice, to show obedience. Not obedience as God, but obedience as man. We too must be willing to give up our greatest power...the power of choice. We must give up our worldly ways of life and the attitudes that we’ve developed from living in our society. It means behaving according to God’s expressed will. I choose to offer my life to God as a blank sheet of paper with my name signed at the bottom of this blank piece of paper, and let God fill it in as He will. I choose to point people to God. This is our like-mindedness with Christ. Jesus says to the Holy Spirit, “seal me 144000 who hate nothing but sin and love God with all their hearts and I will perfect me a people who will give account for all the faithful and shake the whole world with my truth”. Let us ask God to let this same attitude and purpose and humble mind be in us. Let us have within ourselves the same disposition of mind as was in Christ Jesus. Let us be always thinking of Your way as did Jesus. Let us enforce the earnest exhortations and unselfish consideration of the things of others. Let our attitude toward one another be governed by Your being in union with us.
Philippians 2:4
Christ is the supreme example. And the deep things of Christ showing his voluntary self-abasement is our connection of having regard to the condition and needs of others. We are the “others” whose “needs” are the great object of his actings of grace. And it is his mind, as so expressed, that is to be our mind. Let us be characterized with a selfless mind, a sacrificial mind, a serving mind. Let us know that this mind is granted to us by You. The word does not give us all that is in the mind of Christ. But we have the revealed expression of truth through reasoning with scripture. The word seems always to keep in view the direction which thought of a spiritually practical kind takes. The expression could be translated in a number of ways, each of which while holding to the main idea, yet brings out a slightly different shade of meaning. To have understanding, to be wise, to direct one’s mind to a thing, to seek or strive for, to be constantly thinking this in yourselves, to reflect in your own minds, the mind of Christ Jesus, let the same purpose inspire you as was in Christ Jesus. The sum total of the thought is the exhortation to urge us to emulate in our lives the distinctive virtues of the Lord Jesus. The idea is not to give just a casual thought to something but a thinking, a reasoning that involves the affections and the will.
The Jesus that is the Son of God is truth, and in his mind is all truth. He proposes to share this truth with us that we may, in the same mind share his truth with others. So, it is vital to remember that Christ has not left us alone to try to carry this out by ourselves. He has given each and every believer a wonderful Helper, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. And so, we must continually remember that the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in us, continually working, continually giving us the desire and the power to carry out all of God's commands. As Christ followers, we are 100% responsible to "have this attitude". The test of the submissive mind is not just how much we are willing to take in terms of suffering, or how completely obedient we are, but how much we are willing to give in terms of sacrifice...but when love is the motive...
The final generation believers hold that God's people must cease from committing sinful acts before the "close of probation," and before the "time of trouble". Our minds are not patterned like any other generation. There is a spiritual richness that we are to have that patterns the mind of Christ. God’s last day faithful ones will have powerful minds. On the spiritual path, one cannot improve the self or serve others without a firm resolve that translates into good judgment, compassion, courage in standing up for beliefs, inspiration to help others. There’s a reason why God chose such people. They do not have selfish expectations of people, they are not upset by the defects in others. These, having perfect peace, keep their minds stayed on Jesus. No distraction, no oppression will cause us to move from Christ. Jesus knew the truth of things and spoke the truth, that we might approach the last days with understanding. Our natural minds are so dull that we tell ourselves that things aren’t as bad as they really are and go on daily seeking comfort.
We see what we want to see. Thus, we are told to have the mind of Christ. And we can only have the mind of Christ if we have the faith of Jesus Christ. The mind of Christ is able to discern spiritual things. There must be a transforming by the renewal of our mind that we might know the will of God. Having the mind of Christ rewrites our hard drives so that we are capable of understanding, of interfacing with God Himself. We can see clearly the reality before us that this world is temporal and flawed, and that we are meant for an eternal world. There is a hostile and intense battle raging for the mind of every man. We are being pursued by an unrelenting, wrathful, and deadly adversary. His single and solitary goal is the demise and destruction of everything and everyone that God loves. There is a great controversy that must be settled in the mind of all intelligent beings in the universe. But God has a peculiar people born during this age in which earth history closes, that have come into existence for such a time as this. Satan has concocted an effective and dastardly formula to hijack the minds of humanity. It is a formula that works every time against those who are not cognizant of his plans and methods. Scripture alerts those who study to be not ignorant of his devices. The book uncovers this enemy’s strategy. It gives us all the ability to not only resist, but with the mind of Christ, belonging to the election of grace, to overcome.
Romans 16:19, 20
If you do nothing about Satan’s efforts, you will be lost. The stream of sin flows so swiftly, that to do nothing means being carried downstream to eternal destruction. We must open the eyes, the ears and the minds of people right now! They must come to the truth right now.
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