Mind of God - Introduction

The Mind of God has been one of my pet topics for decades. I am going to be brave and explore it a bit more, here in public. I’ve been collecting ideas and thoughts in a notebook. We’ll see where this goes. To find all of the posts on this topic, look for Mind of God in the Topic Cloud and click on it.

image from http://phoenixicsepehr.blogspot.com

One of the most powerful verses and chapters in the Bible is Philippians 2, where Paul tells us to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, being in the form of God... made himself of no reputation and... he humbled himself and became obedient unto death.” (Condensed but I haven’t changed the meaning.)

I remember the first time I discovered I Corinthians 2:16 in the Living Bible. It says, “But strange as it seems, we Christians actually do have within us a portion of the very thoughts and mind of Christ.” WHAT? I went scrambling back to the translation of my childhood, King James, to see if that was really what the verse said. Here’s what I found, “we have the mind of Christ.”

This was astounding! Paul actually did say that we have the mind of Christ! Now, I know that my mind is rarely behaving the way I think Jesus’ mind did. I may be able to control my actions and choose to (mostly) do the right things. I may be able to guide my thoughts so that I’m not usually dwelling on anger, greed, lust, etc. But for the most part, my mind is pretty much centered on one topic, me. And that is the opposite of being focused on God, serving him and others.

After all, way back in 700BC, Isaiah said, “Who has understood the mind of the Lord?” (Is 40:13) I think most of us would agree that this sounds like too tall an order. Isaiah also said that God’s “ways are higher than your ways and [God’s] thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9.

And yet, we “have the mind of Christ.” That seems impossible to fathom. What does it mean? The Living Bible actually backs off from the literal translation and cautiously says that we have a portion of that mind. But literally the original says “we have the mind of Christ.” Wow!

So how do I tap into this amazing potential? What does it mean to have the mind of Christ? I decided that if I am supposed to have that mind, indeed already have it, that I need to try to learn what’s in God’s mind.

We all have unused portions of our minds... we may have a talent we’ve never yet discovered. We can improve our memory with practice. We can expand our vocabulary. This topic will continue to explore how we find that “mind of Christ,” and begin to let that mind guide our lives.

This won’t be me telling you what to do. This will be me trying to learn what I should do.