Series: The Mind of God
Message: Thinking God’s Thoughts
Preacher: Mark Johnson
Refresh: Open with prayer. Read or listen to Psalm 34:17-22.
Read: 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 - As you re-read for the final time this week in the ESV translation, what did you discover new about God’s character?
Reflect: We have looked at many examples of God’s friends, and I have made the claim that they knew the mind of God so well that they began to think His thoughts after Him. This leads me to two questions: How did they come to understand the mind of God so well? Can I, too, learn to know God so well that I begin to think like Him?
Back to the story of my wife’s checks on our stairs. That’s really a very simple story. It’s almost like a question we are taught to ask to check out someone’s mental status: “If you found an envelope on the ground that was addressed to someone and it had a stamp on it, what would you do with it?” (For those who may be confused, the “correct” answer is “put it in a mailbox.”)
But every week, if not every day, my wife and I think each other’s thoughts. Why? Because we have spent so much time together over the past 40 years, and we have gotten to know each other so well, that it is almost second nature now to think about what the other might be thinking or needing. As one of my favorite authors has said, “It is a law that we will become like the person that we love and admire.” Another way of saying that is to say that by beholding we become changed into the likeness of the one with whom we spend time.
I believe there are two steps in the process of learning how to think as God thinks. The first is to spend time with Him. There are several ways of doing this, but the best, and safest, is to spend time in the Bible learning to know more about Jesus Christ, who came to reveal to us what the truth about His Father was. But that’s not enough. Lucifer knew God better than any of His other creatures, and still chose to rebel against Him. The second step is to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This, too, isn’t done by just random spiritual meditation. That can lead anywhere. It is by choosing to serve Him. “You cannot change your heart, you cannot of yourself give to God its affections; but you can choose to serve Him. You can give Him your will; He will then work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure. Thus your whole nature will be brought under the control of the Spirit of Christ; your affections will be centered upon Him, your thoughts will be in harmony with Him,” (Steps to Christ, p.47).
Recalibrate:
Respond: Pray for the mind of Christ.
Research: Of all the things that need to be done to be reconciled with God, what does He do for us, and what is the one thing that we must do?