The Mind of Christ

It is an amazing feat to see a child of God go backward and downward away from the Father’s love and care. And yet each has the potential to back up and back down from the amazing grace and capture of our Father in heaven.

With all that is before us, the bema seat of judgment by Christ, heaven’s reward or heaven’s rebuke, with the presence of the King– it would seem, rather, that we would not turn away and spoil our soul. But it happens too often to so many. We can sit and church and backslide on God. We can sing songs of thanksgiving and songs of Christmas and yet be in a state of lukewarmness. But it shouldn’t be nor should our lives become a disgrace to God’s grace.

God the Father has given the resources we need to live above this world and with the ability to resist its undertow. Yes it takes discipline and devotion but it is doable through faith in the indwelling Christ. God has brought us back from the depths of despair and from the loss of wasting time.

If the Word of God is not changing us into the very image of Christ, then the Word of God is not functioning as it ought. And that is not because of the seed of the Word, for it is not bad, but it is because of the receiver of the Word. We can tell if we are beholding God or allowing the world to mold us into something we don’t want to become. Again, God has given us all we need that pertains to life and godliness. But we have to avail ourselves of its power. He is looking for those who are poor in spirit and who trembles at His Word.

Prayer that gets past the living room ceiling is prayer that recognizes first and foremost that God is Sovereign Creator and man is the servant. Proper prayer places God above all and man at His feet. Prayer recognizes that God is seated and He cannot be unseated. He is not a genie that we get three wishes if we rub hard enough on the prayer lamp.

When we learn that God desires holiness then we will seek Him. Prayer is not about our having our way with God–it is God having His way with us. Prayer is God guiding us to do His will. Again, God is not a doting grandfather who has lollipops in His pockets for spoiled children.

We do not pressure God to do anything in our praying. We allow God to pressure us and to press us into His will. God cannot be bribed, cajoled, convinced, or impressed to change. God is unchangeable. Prayer changes nothing of God but everything of us. Therefore, if we do not want to be changed, we will not be praying prayers that effect change.

What is it about our praying that matters? God controls all and yet if He cannot control our actions and attitudes then our praying will be in vain. God moves us to surrender but if we continue to live in our own weather pattern then the storms of life will continue to pour out upon us because of our own lack of reverence and order. God is merciful but we must recognize His sovereignty over our lives. True praying brings us to God!

The longing that so many in the early church had for Christ’s return seems to have burned itself out in many churches and breasts of believers today. The “yearning” and the “fainting” for the return of Christ that has distinguished the personal hope from the theological one in Christians of that day was real and very personal. They could taste it.

We have spoke of the cross so much that I believe we have forgotten the beauty of the One who died upon that instrument of death. The saved person seems to be more about a contractual system than involved in a personal love. The “work” of Christ has been so stressed that we have eclipsed the person of Christ and His beauty.

To stay awake and long to see someone involves love and anticipation, and that seems to be lacking immensely today. There is power and joy when we long and love to see someone coming down that aisle, or arriving at the house. It changes the whole atmosphere and endeavors to bring all the senses of mind, body, and soul together.  We have become too comfortable in this world today. The Lord Jesus pulls as a magnet that causes us to jump with joy when we think of Him and our seeing Him.

May we get our eyes off of ourselves, our problems, and begin to worship Him who is coming in grace, glory, and grandeur. What it does today for you and me will eliminate so much that really does not matter. When the heart is right then the eyes will be looking upward.

“…for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psalm 143:2).

Our Lord suffered in His death for our disobedience. In His life His obedience to the law was perfect. Since the Law was perfect (revealing the heart and mind of God), it says that any who break it is condemned to death. Jesus Christ is and was the only One who ever obeyed all points of the law perfectly and obediently. All that is required of us to be justified, therefore, is to acknowledge our sin and helplessness. We are to repent of our life of self-assertion and self-righteousness, and to put our whole trust and confidence in the finished work of Christ to save us.

Faith in Jesus Christ is more than intellectual consent only, but personal commitment. We believe “into” Christ Jesus. It is through faith we are justified. The law kills but faith in Christ makes alive. “For it is through the law I die to the law, so that I might live to God” (Gal. 2:19). The law slays but Christ saves. So we have no good works we can do to earn justification. Because the works we do, under the law, only condemn us to death; while faith in Christ bypasses the law of condemnation for us but trusts in Christ who died according to the law for us, who did not bypass the law but died our death’s penalty.

Salvation is an act of committal, not just assenting to the fact that Jesus Christ lived and died, but running to Him for refuge and calling unto Him for His mercy. Justification is not only a legal fact when we are saved in Christ, whereby we are declared righteous by a holy God; it is also a transforming experience through a living identification with Christ.  By union with Christ we are radically transformed; we can no longer go back to our old life, for in Christ we are “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). We are saved by the faith of Christ: past, present, and future.