Often times our mind is like a recorder/player, playing and replaying what we have put into it. For the Christian however, Rom. 7:25 is a wonderful re-record: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Our mind is the decision maker for the soul, the part of our essence which also includes our emotions and our free-will. With our mind we can make right or wrong decisions but even then it is hard to get the victory. That is why we must put on the mind of Christ (Phil 2:4-12). Our battlefield is fought, won and lost in our soul, not in our flesh or our body. That is why BELIEVE began with ten sessions on How to Think Like Jesus.
Read
the passages this week and see how the lead us to think like Christ would want
us to.
Have
you ever thought about how your physical senses are portals or gateways into
your soul? What you see, hear, smell, taste and touch will impact what you
think about, how you feel, and what you choose to do. That’s why smelling the
cookies on Sunday night for deliveries often can make us think about cookies
and desire to eat them!
As a
result, what affects our senses will be gateways into our thoughts and that is
why reading and hearing and doing the will of God is so important. 1 Cor. 2:16
says that we have the mind of Christ. Col. 3:2 says to set our mind (some
versions even say our “affections”) on things above.
How is thinking Christ’s thoughts a way of gaining a victory in our actions?
Eph. 2:1-10 says that Jesus made us to live when we used to be dead in sins. We used to walk and live like the world, led by the devil and lust of the flesh and mind, all contrary to the will of God. Yet God still loved us and by His grace He raised us up with Christ’s power, even to the be “seated” in the heavenly places in the spiritual sense. Our lives are hidden in Christ with God (Col. 3:3). By His grace He saved us, and by His grace we can walk in the good works He wants us to.
Another
place Paul speaks about a Christ-like mindset is in Phil. 2:5-11. Paraphrase
that passage on a sheet of paper. Even though Christ was God, He did not cling
to it but gave it all away to be like us. We should have that way of thinking.
Finally, we need also to think like Christ, but think His thoughts. Read Luke 4:14-21. Recall what Jesus’s mission was and ask yourself, “How does my mission compare to Christ’s mission? How should my thoughts be like His?
