Have This Mind
Philippians 2:5-8 ESV
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
To be likeminded with Christ, we have to first of all be in
relationship with him. And, the way in which we enter into relationship with
him is through the forsaking of our former self, and in the renewal of our
minds, and in the putting on of the new self, created after the likeness of God
in true righteousness and holiness, by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus
Christ.
All this is the working of God’s Spirit, who transforms us
from death to life, and from the power of Satan to God, who renews us in Christ
Jesus, and who gives us new lives in Christ to be lived for his glory and
praise. Even the faith to believe in Jesus Christ is God’s gift to us. And, if
from God, then it submits to the Lordship of Christ, repents of sin, and obeys
the Lord.
[Eph. 2:8-10; Eph. 4:17-24; Rom. 6:1-23; Rom. 8:1-17; 1 Jn.
1:5-9]
His Mind Within Us
Now, if Christ is in us, his mind is also within us, so we
should have his mind and heart within us. But, we have to tune into his mind,
and we have to adopt his thinking and his heart into our own way of thinking,
and into our own hearts. And, we do this by centering our thoughts on Jesus and
on his Word, and by not only listening to his word, but by being doers of his
word.
The only way any of us are going to be likeminded with Jesus
Christ, though, is if we surrender our lives over to him, if we submit to his
will for our lives, and if we leave our lifestyles of sin behind us to follow
him in obedience.
Then, as we walk with him, and we do what he says, his way
of thinking and his heart become our way of thinking and our heart.
For, as we get to know him, we get to know his thinking, and
we get to know his heart, and then we begin to feel passionately about the
things he is passionate about, and we begin to think about life and
relationships and obedience through his eyes, and from his perspective, and not
from our own. And, we begin to love what he loves, and hate what he hates.
Bought with a Price
And, we no longer see our lives and our ministries as our
own, to function the way we think they ought to function, but we begin to
realize that we were bought back for God with the blood of Jesus. And, so we
realize that we belong to God.
And, so we understand that we must live, and we must conduct
ourselves, and we must minister in the ways that His Word instructs, and
according to God’s specific calling on our individual lives.
So, for example, if God has called us to blog, then we need
to see our blog not as our own, but as God’s. Therefore, we also need to see
that what we write on that blog is not to come from our own minds and thinking,
but from his. For, if we belong to him, and our blog belongs to him, then we
are merely servants to do his bidding, and thus he is the one who decides what
we write and how we write it, and even regarding the appearance of it.
Now, there are a lot of people who call themselves
Christians who are not true Christians, for they never died with Christ to sin,
and they aren’t living to Christ and to his righteousness, but they are living
for themselves.
But, then there are Christians who have been crucified with
Christ in death to sin, who are not living in sin, but who are walking in the
Light as Christ is in the Light.
But, so many of them don’t grasp this whole mindset that our
lives are not our own. We now belong to Jesus. So, he chooses how we live our
lives, not just in the areas of not sinning, and in obeying Christ’s commands,
but in what jobs we have, and where we work, and where we live, and what
ministries we have, and how they are to be conducted, etc.
We have to empty ourselves of ourselves, we have to become
the Lord’s servants, his bond-slaves, and we have to humble ourselves and be
willing to do whatever it is that God has specifically called us to do that may
not be exactly like what someone else is called to do, but which will be
consistent with the word of God and with God’s divine character and will for
our lives.
And, we have to be willing, in the execution of doing his
work, according to his will and in his ways, to be hated, to be rejected, to be
mocked, to be thought crazy, to be unpopular, to be isolated and alone, to be
abused, and even to be falsely accused, falsely arrested, and even put to
death. Then, we will know what it means to have this mind in us that Christ had
in him.
Work Out Your
Salvation
Philippians 2:12-13
ESV
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about this
Scripture and its message because there is a lot of misunderstanding about our
Lord’s plan of salvation for our lives, too. For, a lot of people think of
salvation as a one-time deal. You “get saved,” and then you live your life, and
one day you get to go to heaven when you die. But, that’s the wrong idea.
The Scriptures teach that we are saved (past), we are being
saved (present), and that we will be saved (future) when Jesus returns, and our
salvation is then complete and our marriage to Christ is consummated.
A lot of the problem comes in to play, I believe, because of
incorrect verb tense translation when translating from Greek to English (for
English speaking people, that is).
For example, in John 3:16 it says that “whoever believing in
him has eternal life.” It isn’t past tense. It is present tense, which
indicates that it is ongoing and continuous. So, we aren’t saved based on past
belief, but on present and active belief. So, we have to actively be believing
in Jesus when we die if we want to have eternal life with God.
And, then there is the issue of defining “belief,” for it
means to be persuaded by God, and if persuaded by God, it will submit to Christ
as Lord, it will forsake sin, and it will walk in obedience to his commands,
because it comes from God, and not from ourselves. We just have to daily put it
into practice by God’s power and in his strength at work within our lives.
And, this is where this working out our own salvation with
fear and trembling comes into play.
This is not works-based salvation. This is not us trying to
earn or to deserve our own salvation. It is us daily living out the faith that
we have in Jesus Christ in the fear of the Lord, and in submission to his will.
But, it is God who is working his will in our lives as daily we surrender our
lives to his will.
Are We Surrendered?
And, this goes back to this whole thing of our lives not
being our own, but that they belong to God – everything about us, our whole
lives.
Are we surrendered to Jesus Christ? Is he truly our
owner-master? Are we steadfast in living for him and in allowing him to live
his life in us and out through us for his glory and praise? Is he truly King
over our lives? And, over our ministries, too? Is he the one deciding what we
do and what we write? Or, are we still holding on to the wheel?
To have this mind in us that is also in Christ Jesus means
that we have to be emptied of us, and we have to lay it all down, and we have
to surrender it all to the Lord, and then just let him lead us one day and one
step at a time.
And, particularly now, when the world is all upside down,
and everything is changing daily, we need to be surrendered to Jesus, and we
need to just let him lead, for he knows what lies ahead, and we don’t. For, he
may lead us to places we have never gone before, in ways we have never experienced
before, because things are drastically changing in our world.
So, we need to be ready to go with him wherever he takes us,
and to do whatever it is he leads us to do, all within his perfect will for our
lives.
Sanctuary
John
W. Thompson / Randy Scruggs
Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary
Pure and Holy, tried and true
With thanksgiving I'll be a living
Sanctuary for you
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