Having the mind of Christ is the differentiator between living a victorious life and a defeated life! So how do we consistently maintain having the mind of Christ?
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)
“You will keep in perfect and constant peace the one whose mind is steadfast [that is, committed and focused on You—in both inclination and character],
Because he trusts and takes refuge in You [with hope and confident expectation]. Isaiah 26:3 (AMP)
I shared in the last devotional that as a new believer, we gain the mind of Christ when we become born again. Now that we have the mind of Christ, we need to nurture it.
The above passage tells us to keep our minds on the Lord. The Amplified translation helps us understand that keeping our minds on the Lord is about making Him our focus. I heard a Christian speaker say, “When we lose our focus we lose our direction.”
It is like driving where you always want to pay attention to what is in front of you. If you start focusing on what is happening to your left or right, you find that your car begins to veer off in that direction as well. Many of us have developed Spiritual attention disorder. As a result, it is easy for us to have the best intentions but by the end of the day, we find our minds focused on something else.
When we keep our minds on the Lord , it causes us to have the peace that Jesus promised His followers! Furthermore, the above passage tells us that those trust in the Lord keep their minds focused on Him. So when we begin to get uptight or stressed out, they are good indications that we are starting to trust in our own abilities, and we are not focused on the mind of Christ.
For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Galatians 6:3
but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:7
Galatians 6:3 and Philippians 2:7 show the difference between a carnal mind and the mind of Christ. When we desire to make ourselves of no reputation and have the attitude of humility and service towards others, we are experiencing the mind of Christ. On the other hand, if we strive to look and feel important by our abilities and achievements, we are setting ourselves up to deception and eventually disappointment.
Jesus was not looking for titles, fanfare, or attention, so when He didn’t have them, they didn’t disappoint Him. And when He did receive them, He did not allow them to define Him.
We live in a culture where many want to be known and famous. Others are defining success by the number of likes or comments on their posts. So the world operates on carnality, and it is easy to get caught up with it. We have to continually wash our minds from those values and beliefs systems, so we don’t see ourselves as failures for not having a worldly reputation.
The above scriptures are powerful to meditate on. Observe your mind and measure it against the above passages and find out if you are growing in having the mind of Christ!
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