Last time we were together we discussed the importance of recognizing the ultimate battleground—the mind—and refusing to be conformed to this world. We studied what it means to renew our mind in Christ. Our Scripture was Romans 12:2 (KJV)

Today, I want to go a bit deeper.

Then, in the coming weeks we will look at what the mind of Christ is, how the believer can pursue the mind of Christ, what that really means for the believer, and what God is preparing for those who do pursue Him.

What is the mind of Christ? To look at the first question, we need to cover two more words in this passage Romans 12:2. “Perfect” and “will”

The Greek word for “perfect” is teleios. It means “mature, complete, more perfect”. This involves various applications of labor, growth, mental, and moral character. It comes from “telos” which means “consummated goal.” In other words, going through the necessary stages to reach an end-goal, to be developed into completion by fulfilling the necessary process. Who does this? You, me, us. The children of God.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:48 “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Be complete, reach the moral character, pursue the consummated goal of perfection, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect. We often flippantly say, “no one is perfect” to explain or justify our failures or mistakes. Yet Jesus said “be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

What if how we handle mistakes and failures was part of our journey?

Would he say this if it were not possible? God’s will is perfect, and if we are going to be transformed by the renewing of our mind to prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect or telios will of God, we need to understand what perfection means for us as His children.

Perfection or telios depicts a spiritual journey. One that speaks less of flawlessness and more of the wholeness that results when God’s purpose is fully realized in a person, an act, or even an era.

We see this in Matthew 5:43-48 in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus summons His disciples to mirror the Father’s love, to love both friend and foe. To love tax collectors, Roman soldiers who abuse them, and their neighbors, each deserve the Father’s love. Perfection is expressed here through mercy and enemy love, not merely moral faultlessness. “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect is to love your enemy” is to love those who shake their fist at you, love those who reject you, spit on you, and extend mercy to each and every one of them, just as your Father which is in heaven did for you and when He sent His Son.

A similar approach is applied to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 who, when in conversation with the Lord, was able to relay the outward, morally righteous, near flawless life he’d led. He seemed the perfect fit to be a disciple of Christ. However, when confronted with the very thing that stood in the path of him fulfilling the good, acceptable and “perfect” will of God, he was unable to do so. The consummated goal of his life would have been to let go of his power (he was a ruler) and his wealth (he was rich) and follow Christ. He lived a life demonstrating one who appeared perfect, teleios, one who was enroute to the coveted life of maturity. Yet, in truth, the wealth and power he possessed were the barrier to him fulfilling the life of perfection, that culmination of his spiritual journey, to walk with Christ to the Cross. Jesus knew exactly what was standing in his way, as He does with each of us, and He addressed it head on by telling him to sell all he had and follow Him.

Let’s ask ourselves the same question.

There are several things that can stand in our way.

1) Wealth and/or power? Both of these things can govern our hearts. The Lord must wrestle this out of the heart of those with wealth and/or power at a deep level to bring them to a place to submit to Him in their spiritual journey. Why? Is it selfishness? Pride? Sphere of influence? Maybe. It can also be a self-sufficiency issue and at times, it is more difficult to overcome this than to overcome the initial stages of pride. When we are so self-sufficient, becoming dependent on the Lord for our future can present enormous and unexpected obstacles. Where will we sleep? How will we eat? What about our family? In fact, the more self-sufficient we are, the more God will need to strip from us until we take our sufficiency and place it where it belongs, into the hands of our Father.

Regardless of the root, what is important is this: will we be able to uproot the issue that stands in the way of our maturity, our perfection?

Paul had power and great influence in the Synagogue, despite his young age, he had papers that allowed him to go great distances to arrest and bring Christians in for questioning, persecution, and even death. That is tremendous power and influence. He was also very self-sufficient. It takes time for God to work this out of us, for Paul, it was nearly 15-20 years before he was able to declare to the Corinthians that his sufficiency was in God. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6)

2) What about knowledge? This seems like it should not be something that stands in the way of our maturity. However, it can and does. Paul had knowledge, knowledge beyond what most on the planet at that time could hope for, he was the Einstein of his day, he could converse with anyone, anywhere. He spoke to the laymen and the rulers, all the way up the emperors. He understood the Old Covenant like few on the planet, had he not been a Jew he likely would have been considered a great philosopher even by the Romans. He was a student of Gamaliel, who said of Paul, he could scarcely provide him with enough material as he was a voracious student. He read every Hebrew and secular book he could get his hands on; he hungered and thirsted for knowledge and that knowledge was trapped in his brain unable to be properly processed and applied to save himself or his fellow man. Why? Paul was stuck in an immature state until his Damascus Road experience. It was then that he was left blind and his vision turned inward to see the depravity and immaturity within his own heart.

How many IVY league professors are so wrapped up in secular humanism that they no longer believe in God? I have a dear friend who is highly educated and he firmly believes only the weak-minded need the crutch of religion. How wrong he is.

When Paul came to the revelation knowledge of Christ, God used him to unpack the Scriptures like few could and then he put quill to parchment so we too could hold onto these incredible revelations. He wrote almost half of the New Testament. Despite this, Paul said he counted all of this but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. (Phil 3:8, 2 Cor 11:16-33)

3) What about the fear of persecution? There are those who feel called to endure persecution, those who are willing to even go through the tribulation to be a witness to others, but when they are in the midst of persecution, they find they cannot endure. Why? Fear. Fear of death, fear of failure, fear of emotional suffering, or is it a lack of faith in God’s provision of grace amid the persecution. Trying to endure persecution during Covid was intense. We may condemn the Church for closing its doors, but what about the Churchgoers? There were many churches that did not close their doors or only did for the first few weeks, yet it took months, even over a year, for church attendance to return to its pre-Covid numbers. Why? Fear. Fear of death?

It does not really matter the reason, what matters is this: will we learn the lessons that stand in the way of our maturity, our perfection and move forward? (Col 1:24-29, 2 Co 11:16-33)

4) Is it suffering? Suffering is a tricky thing. Paul suffered for the sake of the Gospel and for the growth and expansion of the Church. Both persecution and suffering for the sake of the Gospel and righteousness are the seed of the Church. Look at the first century Christians. In addition, Paul suffered to see the Church enter into maturity. Not that Paul can bring them into maturity, but his suffering was—and still is—the seed that paves the way for the Church to follow.

Identificational suffering is something many resist or believe is not Scriptural because it is not taught as such. Paul’s life, however, teaches a very different reality. (2 Cor 11:16-33)

Fred used to say, “we’re just training for reigning.” These words are profoundly powerful to one who is in the fire. We cannot endure persecution or suffering for righteousness’ sake, for the Gospel, or for the Church like Paul did until we have overcome this on a personal level. I know none of us want to hear this, but it’s true.

The Lord has each of us on a spiritual journey to maturity. Every step of the way there are things we have to set aside, let go of, literally cast off of us because the burden of carrying them will weight us down too much to be able to know what is that good and acceptable, perfect, teleios, will of God. The Lord wants our home, our will, to be in Him. He does not want our comfort to be here; He wants us to be perfected in Him which means our place of comfort must be in Him. Our spiritual journey implements or activates this in our lives.

How often do we hear of those who were afraid of death when they were diagnosed with cancer, ready to go home to heaven by time that was journey was over? It’s a fast trial that forces one to look inward and reflect on what is important in our lives. The rat race comes to a grinding halt and faced with our mortality we are forced into a spiritual journey. Will it be spiritual growth or spiritual death, that is up to the individual.

When we submit to Him on our spiritual journey, our lives stop being our lives and start being His.

Teleios releases every rival allegiance so that the Kingdom—God’s Kingdom—alone governs the heart.

To pursue a life of perfection is to pursue a life of maturity.

Let’s look at one more word in our Roman’s 12:2 passage:

Will- the Greek for “will” is “theléma” and it means: a desire (wish), often referring to God's "preferred-will," i.e. His "best-offer" to people which can be accepted or rejected.

Thelema signifies a determinate will, wish, purpose, or desire. In Scripture it ranges from the unassailable counsel of God to the fickle preferences of fallen humanity. The term appears sixty-three times in the Greek New Testament and clusters around four great themes:

A) The sovereign plan of God
B) The redemptive mission of Jesus Christ
C) The sanctifying path of the believer
D) The conflicted will of sinful mankind

Do we want to submit to the teleios thelema? The perfect spiritual journey that complies with God’s sovereign plan in the sanctifying path He set before us?

-OR-

Do we want to continuously submit to our conflicted will as a sinful man?

Shall we go a step further? We can stop there, have our salvation, submit to God’s redemptive plan of salvation and no one will judge. We don’t have to pursue a higher life. We can have salvation. Did the rich young ruler find salvation? Did he hear of Jesus of Nazareth’s death on the Cross and recognize His life and death through the Old Covenant? I have wondered about him many times. His opportunity for the higher life, to walk with Jesus, to give up everything and follow Christ slipped from his hands. Did he find his way back?

Paul chose the higher life and left the pride and status to embrace the persecution and the suffering to identify with Christ for the sake of the Church. He pursued both the perfect will of God, and the mind of Christ.

As we discussed last time, “mind” is “nous”

The mind: noús noun – the God-given capacity of each person to think (reason); it is the mental capacity to exercise reflective thinking. For the believer, (noús) is the organ of receiving God's thoughts, through faith.

It enables us to embrace both the rational intelligence and the spiritual faculty by which God’s truth is apprehended and then acted upon by the believer.

Scripture treats the mind as a dynamic battleground where allegiance to God or rebellion against Him is decided.

This is why prayer is so important to our walk with God. This is why immersing ourselves in the Scripture is so critical in our growth as we pursue the mind of Christ. If we do not have both prayer and the solid foundation of the Word, we can easily get off course. Our doctrine can become compromised if we do not know the Word. Our faith can be shaken when things do not pan out as “we thought God promised” if we do not know the Word and we are not submitted to His perfect will.

Let me remind you, the pursuit of the mind of Christ invites the pressing, a pressing you may or may not be prepared for. I had been pursuing the Mind of Christ for a while, pouring over Scripture, thinking I was understanding it… and then my head knowledge on this issue was tested in a very unexpected way.

Many, many years ago, we had a friend who had cancer. She believed with all of her heart that she was going to be victorious over this cancer. She shared how the Lord called her to missionary work, and He promised her that she would indeed fulfill this calling. The cancer seemed to go into remission and then came back with a vengeance. Our team prayed with great faith, standing against the cancer and warring in the Spirit for life, every single day.

One day Mom called and said she saw her in a white gown, her time was short, begin praying for her family. I was deeply shaken by this. I was standing on what God promised her, I could not accept the fact that she was not going to see the promises God had given her fulfilled.

Within a week she passed…

At that moment I was devastated. I was standing on her promises from God for her. How could a promise from God go without fulfillment?

My faith could have been shaken at that moment. I was certainly shaken. However, instead of shaking my fist at God, I bowed my knee before Him and I went to prayer. I opened the Bible and read His Word because this always comforts my heart. I looked up “promises of God” and then the Lord led me to look up the “will of God.”

I was in Romans 12:2.

Then Matthew 26:39 (this is Jesus in the Garden, the night before His passion)

It was then that the Lord rebuked me. He told me He did not call me to stand on another person’s promises. He called me to stand on His will. His perfect will. It was His perfect will for her to go home to be with Him. It was his complete, sovereign will. Her days were numbered before time began and God’s sovereign will, cannot be thwarted. It was His will for her to go home and be with Him. Her spiritual journey in this body of flesh was coming to a close.

My time and energy should have been spent praying for His will to be done in her and her family over the next week. To pray that what He created for her to fulfill would be completed in that next week, and that her husband and children would have the grace necessary to endure her passing. That was His good, acceptable and perfect will.

That event changed me. I told the Lord I would never intentionally pray against His will again. I wanted the mind of Christ, I wanted His will, I wanted to see things through His eyes. I don’t want to fight His will; I want to submit to the Father’s will as His Son did. It is a very difficult thing to do, especially when you are praying for those very close to you. I have to remind myself to come back to this mindset, to pursue the mind of Christ.

So, when we say yes, this is the path we are embarking on. Are we willing to let go of our will, embrace His perfect will, and truly embark on the path to pursue the Mind of Christ?

It’s nothing like we think it is, I’ve learned that watching Mom…

Are you really ready? Pray and ask the Lord for grace, ask Him to open the eyes of your understanding to see where you are today, and where He wants to take you tomorrow. This is a spiritual journey, one we have the privilege to walk on with the guidance of the Lord.

To be continued next week.

Blessings and love,
Ricci Johnson-Wilson 

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