What Mind?

Morals and Values .9.

Put on the Mind of Christ

Scripture tells us to “put on the mind of Christ”. How do we do that?

The story is told of a little boy who was coming home with his friends from school. The friends passed an apple orchard. The apples in the orchard looked red and ripe and juicy. The friends all said to each other, “There is no one else around. Let’s get some apples. We can climb over the wall and pocket a few.” In my day it was called “scrumping”.  The little boy in my story said to his friends that he could not do it?  “Why not?” his friends asked. “We will help you over the wall”.  “No! It isn’t that.” the little boy said. “I cannot do it because my mother wouldn’t like it.”  “But your Mother is not here”, the rest said. “I know that.” said the little boy. “But I know that she wouldn’t like it”.  “But your mother won’t know. We won’t tell”.  “That’s not the point,” said the little boy. “The point is, I cannot do something like this that I know my Mother would not like”.  “So”, said the rest, “How do you really know that your Mother wouldn’t like it. Maybe she would like it, and maybe she would like an apple.” “I know”, said the little boy. “But how do you know?” said the rest of the gang. “Well”, well said the little boy, “I know My Mother”.

That is the key to putting on the mind of Christ; how well you know him –Christ that is.  How well do you know what he said? What he did? What he asked his friends to do? What standards, values and morality did he set?

More than knowing about Christ, how well do you actually –really know Him?  Being a follower of Jesus is not simply reading the scripture. It isn’t even knowing your Bible well and what things are told us there about his life and work on earth. Neither is it the fact that he said, “I am showing you just what God the Father is like, and if you have seen me you have seen the Father.”  Jesus did, of course, go away. But before he went away, he said many brain changing and thought changing things to his friends. These are things that echo through the ages to His friends now. In other words, if you are a friend of Jesus, what He said is to you - yourself. “Yes. I am going away, but actually I am with you always. I am sending my Holy Spirit to be with you until I come again”.

So then, as we hear and listen and ponder what Christ spoke about, our actions, as well as our reactions, become the natural expression of having the mind of Christ.  How do know what Christ thinks? How do you know what He would like and what he would not like? Well; because I know Him well, and am getting to know him better every day, in that way I am putting on the Mind of Christ.  That is the great Lodestone to Morality, Values and just plain living right.

Adrian Hawkes

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