Day 6...

Morning Meditation, Day 6:

“But we have the mind of Christ” (I Cor. 2:16b)

In our natural state, it is almost normal for us to buck against God’s word. In Isaiah 55:8, God, through the prophet, tells us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” We are of the earth and think earthly thoughts, but God has chosen to reveal Himself to us by sending His word.

The first phase in knowing God has been fulfilled, but we need more if we are to truly comprehend His words. Just reading what God has said is not enough; we need Him to open our understanding. The story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40, comes to mind as evidence. He sat reading from the prophet Isaiah in the desert when Phillip, the evangelist, approached him and asked if he understood what he read, to which he responded, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” We need help to understand it too.

In Ephesians 1:17, Paul prayed that God would give us “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ.” We need to know not only what God thinks, but how He thinks. We need to understand the logic of God to make sense of His word. We need to be transformed from our carnally minded perspectives and reasonings. We have to become a people that are spiritually minded. We have to be on God’s wavelength.

Paul explains this transformation in I Corinthians 2:11-16. He teaches, “...In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned... For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
To the world, the word is foolishness. Because we understand the logic of God by the Spirit (we have the mind of Christ), we know God and understand His ways.

To Consider:

Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Are you fulfilling the royal commandment of love? (James 2:8; Gal. 5:13-15)
a) Are you forgiving others freely? (Matt. 6:12-15; 18:21-35; Eph. 4:31-32)


Evening Reading, Day 6:

Psalm 119:41-48
ו Waw
41 May your unfailing love come to me, LORD,
your salvation, according to your promise;
42 then I can answer anyone who taunts me,
for I trust in your word.
43 Never take your word of truth from my mouth,
for I have put my hope in your laws.
44 I will always obey your law,
for ever and ever.
45 I will walk about in freedom,
for I have sought out your precepts.
46 I will speak of your statutes before kings
and will not be put to shame,
47 for I delight in your commands
because I love them.
48 I reach out for your commands, which I love,
that I may meditate on your decrees.