Bible Studies

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The Mind of Christ

Aug 7, 2006
By Rick L King

To believe that just because a person is “Born Again” that he automatically has the mind of Christ is neither scriptural nor is it true. A person that is born again has a new nature resident within. This new nature is Christ and is brought about by the working of the Holy Spirit within him.

Scripture tells us to “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ”. The key word here is the word “let”. We must let or allow the mind of Christ. We all have three minds, which we may choose from. We may operate in our own carnal, fleshly, natural mind. We may operate in the mind of the devil. We also may operate in the mind of Christ, which is the mind of the Holy Spirit. We must choose which we will let rule us. Scripture says that to whomever we yield ourselves servants to obey, to them we are servants to indeed”. We can serve the devil, our flesh, or the Holy Spirit.

The Mind of the Devil

Scripture tells us that the devil is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
We are also told that the thief cometh to kill, steal and destroy John 10:10. The mind of the devil therefore will devour, destroy, steal from us, and kill us spiritually and physically. The method the enemy uses is by suggestion to our mind. We have heard the statement that the devil made me do something. This is only fact in the case of a person that is so full of demons that the demons are actually in control of that person. We are told that “as a man thinketh, so is he”. When thoughts are so controlled by demonic spirits that they control a person then there will be demonic fruit. Look at many stories of Christian men and women that have murdered someone. That person was not ruled by the mind of Christ since we are told in the Ten Commandments “thou shall not kill”. The mind of Christ is a mind that came to give life, not take it away. The killing mind is demonically inspired or controlled by a demonic spirit. The devil is still working on us today as he did way back in the Garden with Adam and Eve. The devil or serpent made a suggestion to Eve that was in opposition to the will of God. Had Eve pushed off the temptation and not accepted it as truth she would not have fallen. Notice that after she yielded to the devil she then experienced fear. She did not have that while living in the Garden. The bottom line is the devil will make suggestions to our mind. We must then make a choice to either believe them or reject them. A person that is unsaved or has little knowledge of what truth is (God's Word) has nothing to compare the words of the enemy with to know whether it is the will of God or not.

Our Flesh

Our flesh is sometimes referred to as our body, yet often times it has a different meaning. Scripture says, “They that are in the flesh cannot please God”. If the flesh were our body then as long as we lived in our body we could not please God. The word flesh in this scripture refers to our mind, our carnal nature, or our natural man. We also read that “the carnal mind is enmity against God”. This confirms the previous scripture yet says it a little differently. God is a spirit. God has made provision for us to communicate with Him by making us a spirit being which lives in a body and has a soul or mind. When we walk by our carnal fleshly nature we do not please God because of the choices that we make are selfish and feed our lustful nature. Scripture says to walk in the spirit and to not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Imaginations

The word imagination means thoughts. As said previously, thoughts come from our own mind, the devil or demonic spirits, and the Holy Spirit. 2 Cor 10:5 says, “ Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”. When thoughts other than those initiated by the Holy Spirit are resident within our mind, our focus is on the wrong master. Entertaining these thoughts means that we are exalting these over what Christ thoughts would be. We are told to have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ will produce thoughts that are in line with God’s thoughts. These thoughts are the knowledge of God. We usually consider this scripture to mean the knowledge about God, yet if we have the mind of Christ it can only mean having God’s knowledge. Any thought outside of the mind of Christ is of the flesh or possibly demonically inspired. These thoughts make either self or the devil lord, not God. These thoughts cause us to build our kingdom and not God’s. These thoughts are against the knowledge of God. They are in opposition to His will so no wonder He says that they who are in the flesh cannot please Him. Not only does it keep His will from being known and done, it also keeps us from an intimate relationship with Him. We are told to have no other gods before Him. If Jesus and the thoughts from God through the Holy Spirit are not what we seek and follow, then we have made someone or something else a god before God. All unrighteousness is sin. Unrighteousness is wrong thinking. This is why we are told that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Let’s face it. We do not always listen and act on the right thoughts. Yet, if we truly desire to walk in the spirit we must learn to cast down imaginations so that we may gain the knowledge of God. We must learn to have no mind of our own if we choose to have the mind of Christ. Jesus gave up His will to do the will of the Father, which sent Him. If we are yielding to Jesus via the Holy Spirit then we must do the same thing. This is the only place that we will find revelation knowledge and the true will of the Father.

Prayer

Prayer is communication with our Father in Heaven. Prayer can be fleshly or spiritual. If being in the flesh cannot please God, then we need to look at our prayer life. Do we just pray all of our problems and troubles and ask God to do many things, or do we care about what God desires? A mature Christian is more concerned about hearing and knowing what God desires than what he himself desires. It is really not about you and me; it is only about Him. If we are crucified with Christ yet we live, yet not us but Christ living within us, then whose will should we be concerned with? If we are dead, it can’t be ours.

My concern is that we as Christians need to learn how to get out of the flesh when we pray and get into the spirit so that we may learn the will of God and how to pray about the things that God desires to tell us and do. The following is therefore meant for our learning and not so much a formula to follow.

1. Forgive! We must forgive and be forgiven, as unforgiveness will block our prayers.
2. Thanksgiving and Praise! We enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. It seems to me that if I kept helping or doing something for someone and never was thanked, I would feel a little unappreciated. We need to let God know that we do appreciate Him. God does inhabit praise. When we praise, He comes on the scene.
3. Cast down Imaginations- we must get rid of the wrong thoughts and gain the mind of Christ. The natural man (fleshly carnal man) cannot receive the things of God because they are spiritually discerned). If we desire spiritual things, we get into the spirit to hear them.
4. Pray in the Spirit- I firmly believe in praying in tongues. I have prayed up to 10 hours at a time. Praying in the spirit causes us to yield to the Holy Spirit and not our carnal mind. Praying in the spirit brings a release in our spirit, brings to us revelation knowledge and understanding, brings power to our prayers, shows us any spiritual warfare that God desires done to break the power of the enemy that has any hold over us or anyone else.
5. Pray the Word- God confirms His Words- He confirms those things which He said to us that He will do. Many people pray the logos or written word alone. I firmly believe the logos is God, but the rhema Word is what God gives to us to tell us what He desires to do right now, or in the future that we are to stand by faith for. If we needed only the logos word, then where or what would be the purpose for the Holy Spirit? Even the gifts of the spirit are rhema words.
6. Thanksgiving and Praise- We must continually thank and praise God for what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will be doing. This is faith when we can praise without seeing.


The bottom line is this then. Choose ye this day whom that you will serve. It is a choice to have the mind of Christ. It takes effort on our part to seek and find. We must determine if it is important to us to hear and know the mind of the Lord, and if so, are we willing to pay the price. Each of us makes that determination for our selves.


Copyright © 2007
By: Rick L. King
No portion of this may be reproduced or used without written permission from the author.
Please contact me at [email protected] if you have a need for this writing. Thank You.

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