The Word: Philippians 2: 5 -6(KJV)
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God
Dig Deeper: Philippians 2: 7- 9 (KJV)
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
Think about it
LET THIS MIND BE IN YOU
Still on our journey to become like Jesus. Just a little recap:
When we are born again, we are born into God’s family. We are born of God’s Spirit, we have the same DNA as God and Jesus. We are partaker of Divine nature – 2 Peter 1: 3 – 4
So our spirit man has the nature of God. But our soul and body remains the same. Discipleship is therefore a life long journey in:
1. Training our spirit man to become sensitive and experienced in following the leading of the Holy Spirit who is within us. Even though we have the Holy Spirit within us, It takes a bit of experience and getting used to for our spirit man to constantly follow his leading
2. Train our soul and mind to be able to discern between the thin line of what is right, what is permissive and what is wrong. The writer of Hebrew talks about learning to discern by experience:
Hebrews 5: 14
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Romans 12: 1
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
So our soul can be trained through the word and experience to make a judgement between what God is happy with, what God is unhappy with and what is Ok but not necessarily perfect.
3. Train our body to be disciplined and not follow every worldly whim.
So discipleship involves training our spirit man, soul and body. However our text today mentions something very important:
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus
In other words, if we want to be like Jesus, we must learn to think like him…… This is very powerful. If you can get into someone’s mind, then you can understand why they behave the way they do or take certain actions. If you start to think like a person, you will start to act like them because we generally act what we think. People who are Jihadist for instance indoctrinate their followers. By telling them certain things repeatedly, they change their way of thinking. And those followers eventually go out and act those things they have been brainwashed with.
God’s way is the same. He wants to brainwash you and myself to think like him. If you think righteousness, holiness, mercy, love, power that is what you will exude. If our thinking pattern is changed to be similar to Jesus’ then we will by default start to act and live like Jesus.
Nuggets:
Without learning to think like Jesus, we can never truly be conformed to him.
Our memory verse for March 2018
Luke 9: 23
23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Let’s take a few moment to learn our memory verse for this month by heart. It can be memorised in 3 lines:
Line 1: And he said to them all,
Line 2: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself,
Line 3: and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Once you say it a few times it will stick.
Prayer focus: Our next level prayers:
Lord please me focus on your word so I can be transformed to think like you do.
On Grace:
Masterlife Workbook: The Church is embarking on weeks of discipleship workbook study: Masterlife now on the 2nd workbook: The Disciple’s personality