One of the most powerful Mindset passages I’ve found…
1 Corinthians 2: 14-16 – The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
The context as I see it
The context contrasts the natural person and the spiritual person. So right away there’s a sense that something is different for those who follow Jesus.
The “spiritual person” (the Christ-follower) is able to:
- discern/understand the things of the Spirit of God
- judge all things
To me this means that through his connection with Jesus he is given an ability to understand the LORD’s way of doing things, the way the LORD views things.
The way Paul says it is that “we have the mind of Christ.”
That statement is amazing. To think that I, once a desperate and broken rebel against Jesus, am now gifted with His very mind, is to stretch my imagination to its limit.
What does it really mean?
At the very least it means that we’ve been given the ability to understand the things God has given us (vs. 12) and the capacity to comprehend and teach “spiritual truths” (vs. 13). By the gift of the Holy Spirit we are let in on heavenly things, God-sized things. We are given a set of spiritual eyes, so to speak, that grant us spiritual vision and understanding.
What does this unbelievable reality say to the issue of mindset?
- Every day I wake with the ability to see and understand things that most of the world doesn’t.
- I have a “solid ground” beneath my thinking, the eternal wisdom of God.
- I have the ability to think rightly – about God, myself, circumstances, and others.
- The truths of the scriptures are open to me. I can understand them and rightly apply them.
- Everything that “is” the mind of Jesus is available to me.
- Humility
- Patience
- Wisdom
- Love
- confidence
- Peace
- Joy
- And so much more