Christmas and Recovering the Mind

[HKHaugan]

Christmas and Recovering the Mind

 

“Are you out of your mind? - Where is your mind? - Keep your mind on what you’re doing. - My mind can’t handle it. - He’s playing mind games. - They’re trying to get into my head. - I can’t get my mind around that. - He’s got a screw loose somewhere. - He’s not playing with a full deck. - His elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.” All of these are common expressions recognizing the importance of how we think and what’s behind what we think. As we previously said, repentance begins with the mind. From there on we are overhauling the mind from where the world wants it to be to where the Lord wants. What starts in the mind goes to the heart and what goes to the heart goes to our spirit from which comes our action.

 The Lord came to recover our minds.

 The first part of God’s recovery process is reshaping how we think (Rom.12:2). Created in His image we have been given a mind. It’s purpose? To think with the same spiritual context He does but to adapt it uniquely, creatively, as He has made our individuality to function. He has given us a mind manual, Holy Scripture, to begin the reshaping process. It is filled with the principles that develop the uniqueness He has given us.

 So, salvation is not a generic process where we all become ‘cookie-cutter, look-and-act-alikes.’ Each of us is special and formed to be special, unique and different from one another based on the mind of Jesus, the way He thought and the insights He gave. His uniqueness is important to see because He submits to the uniqueness of the Father in the uniqueness of the Holy Spirit while, at the same time, each is completely one with the other.

 What the world and the devil want is for everyone to think, feel and act conforming to the attitudes and opinions of others, to get what you can while you can and grasping for control in every moment. This kind of thinking leads to fear based aloneness. You end up using people instead of loving them, fitting in instead of leading out, hiding who you are instead of honest self-expression, getting worldly wealth and approval instead of seeing life in an eternal perspective, instant gratification instead of building character and integrity. God gives the kind of recovery process that encourages the individual to think biblically. This opens the mind to reason spiritually and apply that reason creatively for the benefit of others. His Creation is the example. Jesus is the promoter of that kind of creative freedom in the context of the physical, emotional and social environment in which we live. He releases the mind to fresh and courageous discovery. It is a relational freedom led by the Holy Spirit.

 Paul says it beautifully, “Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you (Rom.12:2 Message Bible).”

 Consider for a moment Jesus’ teaching as to what is most important and how it is so different from the world in which we are called to witness, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself (Lk.10:27).”

 How each of us ponder that in our mind and let it ‘sink in’ will determine how we begin to really be creative in our uniqueness. That Great Commandment is the Great Reshaper of what God has intended each of us to experience and that is His Great Mind. Think about it.