Last time we talked about some of the pressing involved in our pursuit of the Mind of Christ as well as the hunger we experience as we pursue Him at a deeper level. We discussed several Greek verbs—which of course mean action on our part—from 1 Corinthians 2:9-16. These speak to what God has prepared for those who love Him and act accordingly. This is to lay the groundwork for our pursuit of the Mind of Christ.

To pursue Him takes continuous action, adjustment and sacrifice on our part, remember all the verbs we studied last time? However, it’s also important to note, He will respond in both small and profound ways to our consistent fight toward the goal. The path will be intense; we need to dedicate time and effort beyond what we expect to make it to each level. Once we do, the resistance will increase again, everything in our world will attempt to push us backward, away from our dream, our destination, and our pursuit. If we commit to the journey and begin to experience Him in the way that He created us to experience Him, we will find that every sacrifice, every moment, every struggle, will reap the reward of knowing Him personally, intimately, and leave us hungry for more of Him than ever before.

I pray you see the value of pressing in and pressing on in our pursuit of the Mind of Christ. Throughout this process, the Lord will continue to do a thorough inquiry into our hearts as He exposes, purifies, and digs deeper than we ever imagined.

I know I am harping on this issue; my desire is that we would be prepared. The deep pressing that the Lord does in our lives is one done purely out of love. This work is pressing out the old man, to insert the new. This is a journey, a pursuit of the higher life in Him. However, the journey prepares us to bear the Mind of Christ. His thoughts are lovely, full of truth and mercy. They are pure and holy. He is also encompassed in justice and righteousness. It’s easy to see why we cannot obtain or retain the Mind of Christ if we are still focused on or holding on to the old man. Confusion will set in. Amos 3:3 begs the question: how can two walk together except they be as one? Are we ready to walk together with the Lord? Are we ready to have His mind?

I want to add two more things here:

The beauty of obtaining and retaining the Mind of Christ is the gift of viewing things through the lens of the Lord. The Lord is wisdom and He sees through deception, He cuts through any attempt at manipulation and severs pride. He literally sees through man’s chaos and brings His stability. As intercessors, to walk in His stability during this shaking is paramount. In the natural, we may not know what is of God and what is not, but when we walk according to the Spirit, when we pursue the Mind of Christ, we are able to see things through His eyes and not our own. I believe this is one of the reasons He’s moved on me to study and present this to us now. There’s so much chaos, we need an anchor. And He, He is our anchor.

This will not only open up a whole new relationship with our Lord, but it will also help us as intercessors as our thoughts line up with His like never before and our intercession becomes more effective with each passing day.

As I shared before, the pursuit involves prayer and active emersion of ourselves in the Word of God. As we read the Word of God, we should be asking ourselves, do my thoughts line up with what I am reading? Not the other way around…remember, the Bible is our plumbline. So, if our thoughts do not line up with what we are reading, it’s time to lay them down, especially if we are serious about our pursuit. The Lord is continuously searching, with a careful, penetrating inquiry (1 Corinthians 2:10), the recesses of our hearts and mind to expose those things that conflict with His Word and His ways. If our minds are on a continual journey for renewal, we will respond with action. Remember, this is a pursuit, not a passive path. It’s an intentional pursuit and as such, if our thoughts do not line up with His, we must intentionally lay our thoughts down, so we can walk according to His. This takes a sacrifice of our will. We must actively replace our thoughts with His, with the Truth found only in His Word. This is part of the renewal process so if we are not in His Word, how can we possibly think His thoughts?

Let’s return to Romans 12:2

Why is this verse so important? It’s only one verse in over 31,000 Bible verses, why do I keep coming back here? Because, nous, the mind, particularly the renewal of our mind as in Romans 12:2, teaches us that the Mind of Christ enables us to reason things out, not with our own understanding but through the Spirit of the living God. This is deeper than the mind that’s in our head; it is the core of who we are. It reflects the work that is being done within a submitted believer to bring our mind to a place wherein it can receive revelation through His Spirit which resides within our spirit-man. This requires the renewal of our mind that we spoke of the last few weeks, but it also requires a renewal of our spirit-man. When we say yes to the Lord, yes to this process of renewal, this is the path we are embarking on. A renewal is a shedding of the old man—the corrupt man—the one that was pursuing its own path to embrace the path God has for us. This means setting aside the television and the interwebs and sitting with His Word to meditate on a single verse for days, weeks and months. It means digging into every Greek or Hebrew word in the surrounding passages and allowing them to transform our inner man, so we reflect Him. Why? He is completing a process within us.

I saw a man, he was reading his Word, and a verse ignited a flame within him. He closed his eyes and prayed. Then, he went silent. Sometime later, his eyes opened and there was an increase of God’s light shining through him. The Lord opened my eyes to see what was happening within his spirit man. When he read the Bible, a flame was lit. As he prayed, that flame grew hotter and began to burn away the old man. Then, when he went silent, he was meditating on that Scripture. I saw the stirring occurring in his spirit, the Spirit of God was exposing and removing the old man, and depositing revelation, truth, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding on that passage straight into his spirit-man. When the revelation stirred within his spirit, it began to travel upward to his mind. It functioned like a conveyor belt within him, as his mind received the revelation, the old man was thrust out of him, and the new man was being born. The more he studied, prayed, and meditated on the Word, the more his old man was ejected. In its place, the renewed mind of this man—the one that could view the world around him through the lens of the Lord—was born. Thus, the increase of light that shone through his eyes.

-End-

This was clearly a work much deeper than salvation; this was a renewal of the inner man to see things as God intended. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, the Lord came in the cool of the day and walked with them. They recognized the sound of His voice and they felt His presence. He imparted Himself into their hearts and minds. It was relational, intimate, and involved a deep fellowship with the Spirit of the Lord. The redemptive plan of God through His Son was and is intended to open this fellowship up for us. Can you imagine that kind of relationship?

When we pursue a renewal in Him, we recognize His presence in our lives every moment of every day. It’s waking through the night to respond to His call to pray, even if only for a few minutes. It’s seeking Him on our movement, our purchases, our donations, our schedules, our career path, our education and so on. It’s recognizing what is truth and what is deception. I cannot express this enough, this renewal, this pursuit, this active ascent toward the Mind of Christ involves viewing everything that goes in and out of us through the lens of the Lord.

This is why prayer is so important in our walk with God. It unlocks, if you will, a level of relationship with the Lord you cannot achieve without it. Again, immersing ourselves in the Scripture is just as crucial in our pursuit of the Mind of Christ. I cannot convey this strongly enough, if we do not have both prayer and a solid foundation of the Word, we can easily get off course. Our doctrine can become compromised if we do not know the Word. The enemy can worm his way into spiritual experiences. No vision, no dream, no experience about the deeper things of God will conflict or contradict the Word of God.

The Word gives us wisdom and knowledge; prayer provides discernment and understanding. These are foundational in our quest for the Mind of Christ.

Let’s dig a little deeper…

As a reminder, renewed is anakainoo and means “up, completing a process to make fresh and anew. It is a complete change for the better.”

This is a constant renewal achieved by God’s power through the heart-cry and pursuit of the believer. It calls for a continuous transformation in our thought life, our values and our conduct. This speaks to the vision the Lord gave me of the man meditating on the Scriptures which I shared a moment ago.

The Greek verb to “put off” is apotithemi. It involves two Greek words which mean “to literally separate from, and then, deliberately cast off.” It is an intentional decision to not just separate ourselves from the sinful nature, the past behaviors, the character and conduct that separate us from the Lord but thrust that conduct from us. The imagery is casting something at His feet. If you have cast sin at His feet, you will have to go back to Him to pick it up.

We cannot align our choices with His saving purposes if we are unwilling to be separated from our sins. We cannot have the Mind of Christ, if we are unwilling to put on His nature.

Sin Separates us from God

Now that we understand that this process is to make a complete change for the better, to cast our sin—that which separates us from God—at the feet of Jesus, let’s look at the sin that Scripture tells us to separate from and deliberately cast at His feet:

Colossians 3:8 tells us to cast off anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language.

Hebrews 12:1 says to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us. (entangles means encircles like predators with their prey)

James 1:21 says to deliberately lay aside filthiness, every expression of wickedness and humbly accept the Word planted in you.

1 Peter 2:1 says to lay aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind.

This is the sanctification process of the believer. The Lord is aware of the struggles we face to let go of sin. He knows the nature and character that has been developed as a result of that sin. He knows it’s a lifelong process of intentional, decisive actions, wherein we continuously break from the old, to put on and pursue Him. This is the pursuit of the Mind of Christ. It is a journey, but it is important to be persistent in our pursuit.

Those are examples of what we put off. So what are we replacing it with? What are we putting on? Let’s review our passage again:

The Greek verb to “put on” is “enduo” and it means “to invest with clothing.” It comes from two words, “en” and “duno” which gives the sense of sinking into the garment. Enduo moves us from the simple act of dressing the body, to the profound reality of God clothing His people with righteousness, power and immortality. In Ephesians 4 the child of God is called to put on the new self, we are created be like the Lord in true righteousness and holiness.

We will continue next time, but until then, consider what it means to sink into a garment created by our Creator. How would it feel? Would we start pulling the buttons of humility and sleeves unforgiveness off or would we embrace the comfort this new nature He’s calling us to provides?

Let’s lay this at His feet, that we might be ready to continue our pursuit of the Mind of Christ.

Blessings & love,

Ricci Johnson-Wilson