The Mind of Jesus
How do we participate in the ways of Jesus?
As human beings, there are two levels of knowing. There is a knowledge that comes from our rational learning and the gathering of data, information, and facts - through our senses. What we see, what we hear, what we can learn from our lived experiences and the gathering of information from the people we meet and the things we read.
But there is another knowledge. The impartation of revealed truth that you see with the ‘eyes of your heart.’ Its relational knowledge that comes from God, revealed by His Spirit, to our spirit, that comes by divine quickening. In some ways, its knowledge that we ‘experience’ as much as we ‘understand’ it. The Hebrew scholars would call it ‘felt truth.’
It’s the place that Adam knew with God, in the Garden of Eden, the ruach hay-yom - or ‘Spirit in continuance.’ It is from this place of ‘revealed truth’ or ‘felt truth’ that the Spirit of God imparts the deeper frameworks of our identity in Jesus. And it’s this renewed and transformed identity that shifts our inner world into replacing our human perspectives - with God’s perspectives.
Its why we need the secret place with God.
This is our pathway to true wholeness and freedom. A freedom of the soul that doesn’t just rationally remember Bible texts, but instead, is actively living out of the text as its new ‘centre of being.’ This is the process that we call - waking up. It’s the discovery of God’s perspectives in the inner frameworks of our deeply held beliefs and identity, and the creation of new patterns of thinking and believing that become our new normal. In believing and acting in this way, our lives are transformed; or what we would call born again - re-birthed into a new and renewed lived experience of the mind of Christ.
His mind - effectively becomes our mind. This is true freedom.
Jesus said in John Chapter 8
“…you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
This word ‘know’ comes from the Greek word - ginosko (gin-oh-skoh) - which means - to experientially know. It’s the same word used when Mary, as a Virgin, responds to the Angel and says - “how can I be pregnant when I have not known a man?” Jesus was speaking about a full transformative experience of truth - in the mind, emotions, and body. Full immersion. When we enter into the truths of God in this way, in a full surrender of our mind, will and emotions, we are entirely, and transformatively, changed. The eyes of our heart are opened and the truths that we now see, from this Spirit-inspired perspective, begin to transform our inner understanding; whilst, simulateously, the eyes of our previously held psycho-neural patterns, the mind-body connections that once ruled us, that were once our only source of interpreting the world, that had previously held us captive to natural, earthly or carnal understandings - are slowly closed.
Remember in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their eyes were ‘opened.’ It has always been interesting to me that the very things that caused their spiritual death was the ‘opening’ of their eyes, not the closing of their eyes. They were now seeing something that was causing them to move away from God. The first thing they said after their eyes were opened was - ‘we are naked.’ And God said ‘who told you that?’ Their open eyes started to give them false information, false interpretations;’ knowledge other than ‘the truth that would set them free.’ Anti-Christ, Anti-God, Anti-Truth. It was what the bible calls carnal truth. Which is just another name for ‘lies.’ They were starting to build their life on lies that they were self-authoring.
This newly opened faculty of ‘seeing’ didn’t bring them blessing. In fact, the exact opposite. It brought death. And from then on, finding what is true has always been the great quest of human existence. But outside of God, this quest is futile. Human constructions of truth can never be underpinned from an eternal, all knowing perspective without the revelation and confirmation of the Spirit of God; which is vital, if our constructions of truth are to be underpinned by eternal wisdom. Only God, who is the Author and Sustainer of all things, is the Source of truth. And…He is the Source of our ETERNAL LIFE.
And this is something we need to understand. Eternal life, or what Jesus called life and life more abundant, is not a place, or a state of perpetual existence, or a never-ending quantity of years. Whilst all these things will be true, that is not the full meaning of the LIFE that has been restored to us. Eternal life is a qualitative statement. It is a relationship that we experience, with the Source of All Life. It is the state of abundance and bliss that always streams from the Person of Jesus, who Himself lives in this state of Being and freely gives of His very LIFE SOURCE to all who are in relationship with Him. Eternal life is our perpetual relationship with Jesus. If anything tries to assert that our connection to Jesus is in anyway broken or incomplete; any circumstance, any lying devil, or any mis-construction of truth that we have previously believed; then it is standing in the way of our access to our true being. And it needs to be cast down.
Consider what Paul says in 2 Cor. 10:4-6 (NKJV)
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
This scripture is talking about the frameworks of ideas, thoughts and beliefs that stand in direct opposition to the obedience of Christ.
What is the obedience of Christ?
The word obedience comes from the Greek word - hupakoe (hoop-ak-o-ay); derived from two Greek words that mean - to submit to what you see and hear. Literal meaning: Submit to what you see and hear in the life of Jesus. Ultimately, the truth and way of Jesus is the filter for our humanity. Our thought life is only to come out of this abundant and life-giving seed bed. Literally, if you don’t see it in Jesus – cast it down! And casting it down, literally means replace the old with the true. We cast down - when we replace.
Remember - our lives do not originate from an earthly frame of reference. Instead, they are divinely conceived, divinely inspired and divinely purposed.
What are we allowing to occupy our daily thought patterns? What underlying belief structures are being revealed as we allow these thoughts to simply roll around in our mind and heart unchallenged. We can intentionally change our thought patterns and belief systems, but it involves a deliberate effort to shift from unproductive or self-authored thought patterns to patterns that have been informed from God’s perspective. The patterns revealed in Jesus.
