Obtaining the Mind of Christ

Our salvation depends on us thinking the way God thinks and not how men think.

“Seek YEHOVAH while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to YEHOVAH, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).

In our flesh we are not able to think God’s thoughts. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares YEHOVAH. “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).

Paul similarly calls on us to think God’s thoughts, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Like Isaiah, Paul recognizes our inability to think correctly, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

God recognizes our inability as mortals to think His thoughts. Therefore God made a way for our spirts to think correctly by indwelling us with His Spirit. The night before His crucifixion Jesus told His disciples, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:26).

The Holy Spirit draws unbelievers to faith by transforming their thinking. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). Specifically he will change how we think about “sin and righteousness and judgement” (John 16:8).

When we are born again God’s Spirit indwells us and enlightens our thinking, “he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:15-16).

Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit we are reconciled to God. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins so that we could become the children of God. The Holy Spirit opened our mind to understand our need for salvation.

In Greek, reconciliation describes the process of change – like exchanging currencies. We exchange our way of thinking for God’s. We exchange the “filthy rags” of our righteousness (Isaiah 64:6) for Jesus’ righteousness made possible through the cross.

Paul warned believers to “walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their thinking, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:17-18).

Instead believers are to “prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 1:13).