The Mind Of Christ

(1 Corinthians 2:14-16)

Who can understand the things of God? In my last post I wrote about understanding the depths of God, but for man in his natural state, the depths of God and the things of God are a mystery. No man understands the things of God because man cannot unless he is taught by God.

The bible gives us some insight telling us that man cannot understand God for man does not think like God. The bible says,

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. – (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The thoughts and the ways of God are foreign to man because man is a creature of sin, but God is not. Man is a creature driven by passions and emotions, but God embodies truth, justice, righteousness, rational thought and love.

So how are we to get to know God and to walk in His ways. This is the subject of these few verses in 1 Corinthians 2:14-16.

Foolishness to a Common Man

The things of God cannot be understood by the man of the world because they are only able to be comprehended by those who have the Holy Spirit. The ways of God and the things of God are spiritual, not physical. Thus they can only be understood by those who seek through the Holy Spirit and to whom these things are revealed by the Holy Spirit.

The people of the world consider the things of God and the people of God to be foolish. They cannot understand the concepts of faith and grace by which God has allowed man to be freed from sin and eventually to live into eternity with Him.

Why they believe it to be foolishness can only be because of pride. It is pride and arrogance that prevents people from seeing the truth that God offers to all mankind. It is pride and arrogance that causes people to mock what they do not understand.

And it is pride that will prevent those who oppose God from ever seeing what He offers.

Unless a person humbles him or her self and turns to God in repentance to seek the truth, they will never find it. Man by nature tends to think that it is by strength and the wielding of power that will lead them forward. But God's way is through peace, humility and repentance. When a person comes to Him according to His ways, then He opens their minds to see the power that is in the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The Mind of Christ

As we walk with Jesus according to the true path that He sets before us, there is a work of transformation occurring in us. We are being slowly and progressively transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

This transformation is not anything that we do but is the work of the Holy Spirit, as the bible shows us.

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. – (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

Who is it that is doing this transforming work? The last verse tells us that this work is being done in us by the Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit.

We cannot do this change in ourselves for we do not understand the things of God until they are revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. We do not have the mind of Christ when we first come to Him. All of us when we first come to the Lord are basically little different than the rest of the people in the world. We have the same weaknesses, passions, desires, faults, worries, fears, problems and issues that the Lord needs to deal with in order to bring us into the image of Jesus Christ.

But God in His great mercy offers us grace to overlook all of the problems of humanity that overwhelm us. He gives us His mercy, compassion and love, fully knowing that we are weak and that we will slip and slide as we walk the road to salvation with Jesus Christ. He overlooks all of these weaknesses, gives us righteousness by faith for as long as we believe Him, and then provides he Holy Spirit to guide us through the murky waters of transformation until we are mature and complete in the image of Christ

The aim is to bring us to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ as we are told by Paul,

13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. – (Ephesians 4:13-16)

We need teaching and we need understanding and comprehension of the truth in order for us to get to this place. Given that man in his natural state does not think as God thinks, it is critical that we have the help of God to interpret His truths to us so that we understand His mind.

Jesus provided the teachings as He walked with the disciples who then left us the legacy of the bible which contains all we need to know. The Holy Spirit is given to us by God and the Holy Spirit has access to ALL knowledge, even the depths of God as we saw in my last post. So he is able to translate these words so that we can comprehend and understand the truth of God.

We see also that Jesus Christ bears the image of the Father as it says in Hebrews 1:3 saying, “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature…”

Like wise we see that the Holy Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. Thus we can say with confidence that when we receive the Holy Spirit from God we are receiving the mind of Christ for the Holy Spirit's thinking is fully aligned with Jesus and Jesus is fully aligned with the Father. There is total and one hundred percent agreement in the way each of these thinks and thus they are of the same mind.

And that mind and that thinking is directed at trying to help anyone who comes to Christ to learn, understand and grow into maturity so as to be able to stand with Christ at the second coming and to live with God forever.

(Picture sourced from freeimages.com provided by Sanja Gjenero)

You might also like:

Growth In The Kingdom Of God
John The Baptist The Friend Of God
Fellowship
Enlightened By The Holy Spirit
Encourage One Another
Sustaining The Church
Gifts From God
The Kingdom Of God Is Within You Parable Of The Leaven
John The Baptist Beheaded
Gods Planned Obsolescence
The Holy Spirit At Work
Transformation
One Important Reason To Receive The Holy Spirit
Ask And It Will Be Given You
Who Is The Ultimate Advocate
You Must Be Born Again
The Holy Spirit
The Spirit Of Truth
You Shall Receive Power
The Promise Of The Holy Spirit
Enlightened By The Holy Spirit
Hope Love And The Holy Spirit
Spirit Of Christ
The Holy Spirit At Work
More Than Conquerors