So there’s that lovely passage in 1 Corinthians 2:11-16 that talks about the Spirit of God knows the mind of God and lays out that there is a connection between accepting God and understanding His mind - and which ends with the stunning verse “but we have the mind of Christ.” Wow. What a statement!

Philippians 2: 5-8 that talks about having the mindset of Christ and goes into detail about what His mindset actually was - and again - what we read is some very heady language and the character of Christ as it’s laid out in this passage is just as mind-blowing as it is in the previous passage.

Brilliant theologians have written whole books on just these verses - and I am not going to attempt to add to that.

What I do want to do is ask you if you have the voice of God in your head? Seems that the first step we can usefully take towards understanding God’s ways and His will for us is to listen to Him. I don’t know about you - but for me that meant surrendering the voice that used to be in my head, you know, the voice with which I speak to myself and maybe you have a voice with which you speak to yourself in your head. I’m told not everyone thinks this way, but many do. I’m just talking about your internal monologue.

And regarding that I’m asking, does it sound like God? Does it sound like the sorts of things God would say? God calls Himself our loving father, and Jesus is our Good Shepherd (Matthew 5-7, Luke 15, John 14) - among many other references in Scripture to God’s love for us, John 3:16 being perhaps the most famous.

Comparison is called the “Thief of Joy” - and I agree with that assessment.

Training myself to think the way God thinks has been a huge Bringer of Joy in my life. It’s also been an excellent way to catch temptations when they’re just a little tiny thought, when they’re easily replaced with truth. Tiny changes in any moment may not seem significant, but they are the building blocks of a transformed life. Much of how we suffer in this life, particularly in the West where we live relatively secure lives free from war and famine, results from being tricked into seeing things differently from how God sees them. We might feel frustrated with how God made us or the life He gave us, but all this has been done in such a way as to perfectly compliment His calling for us and opening our eyes to this can help us see His generous preparation and provision for us in a whole new way. This is another way to describe the way God transforms us. He leads us away from thinking about ourselves, our lives, this world in worldly ways and towards thinking about these things His way.

Got questions? Let’s grab a cuppa and chat!