Philippians 2:5
“Let this mind be in you with was in Christ Jesus.”
The Holy Spirit through Paul is counseling the church that is in a crisis, their pastor is sick and at the moment they have no pastor.
But also Paul is going through a crisis, he is in prison without hopes of coming out. Paul says I know you are in a crisis but what is going to help me and you is godly thinking. Paul is saying this is what has worked for me. He is saying this is crucial because what worked for Paul can also work for the church and you.
I like what Paul did because this is what a godly leader do, he is not here to solve everyone’s problem but to lead you to right place where you will get help. Be careful with a man who is tries to show you he can solve all of your problems without showing you were to go when he is not around. Your prayers and a man of God’s prayer are all heard the same way.
Paul does not try to build dependence on him but he pointed people to the mind of God
There over 40 problems in the book of Philippians some personal others corporate, but all Paul says you need to correct your thinking to be connect it to God’s. Notice that he gives them the same advice throughout all of their problems. He says the only solution to all of your problems and mine is thinking! Thinking! Thinking!
According to psychology a man has between 12,000 – 60,000 thoughts a day. That means 3000 thoughts every hour. Imagine?
They said 50% of thoughts are negative.
And 75% of those are repetitive.
So every day we are flooded with constant streams of thoughts. This is true whether you are a Christian or non Christian.
Your thinking as a Christian is important, thinking is not just thinking! Whatever you think will eventually come out as words or as actions. So thinking never remains as thinking. Our actions are born through our thinking. This is where words are from.
Proverbs 23:7” as a man thinketh so he is”. So how and what you think is key. God wants his mind to saturate your thinking.
This is why Matthew 4:4 God wants you to think with his mind. If you have noticed normally what we hear we think
Mark 4:24 we are told to take heed or to be careful of what we hear with the measure we meet, because whatever we hear we will think about. There is a direct connection between what we hear and what we think about.
So God wants your thinking, because you are your thinking, this is why he wants you to live by every word that proceeds from his mouth. Truth is that whoever has your thinking or mind, that person has you.
You are what you are thinking and you can never be above what you think!
This is why Satan fights to get your mind so that he can control your thinking. Why does he want your mind? It is simple because you can never be different than what you think. If Satan gets your thinking it will be so easy for him to destroy you.
If God gets your mind/ thinking he will build you to success.
When you go to God be it in prayer or for a solution, the first thing God wants to change in your situation is always you.
Before God changes your spouse, he wants to change you.
Before God changes your boss, he wants to change you.
Before God changes your enemies that are against you, while the enemies are attacking you, before he touches them, he wants to change you first.
Before God changes your finances, circumstances, health, or anything in your life he wants to change you.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 he wants to make all things beautiful. Revelation 21:5 behold I will make all things new.
The first thing God wants to change in you is your thinking. God is saying no matter what you are going through until you think with my word or with me, your thinking is wrong.
Your thinking may be rational, logical or reasonable but without thinking with him our thinking is wrong.
And the first step of thinking is thinking with His word. The only way to have positive thinking is thinking with his mind/ his word. Most thoughts from the world are negative and all it brings problems.
The word of God will correct your thinking, it will affect you and make you a better person, and it will transform you.
You need to think right for right actions and right words. And the only ways to do that you need God’s thoughts/mind. Think with God’s thoughts/ God’s mind/ God’s words which he has made available to us through the bible
Godly thinking is he first step to revival, to contentment, to joy, to healing, to peace and to right answers. The Holy Spirit says to the church of Philippians that what they need is thinking with Him. The same thing He saying to you and me.
Sadly it is one thing we rarely do, even men of God are busy promoting what God does but do not encourage people to think with God. But what will it benefit me when I get the healing yet my thinking is not changed. Total change comes when my thinking has been changed but until that the change is not rooted from thinking then it won’t last for good.
2 Peter 2:22 I will be like a dog that turns to its own vomit or a pig that is washed and after goes back into mad.
TWO MOST CRUCIAL THINGS MOST CHRISTIANS DO NOT DO:
Thinking; it is not just thinking but thinking right with God.
Being Spirit filled
Most Christians let our emotions/feelings to think for us or most of us spend most of our day not thinking leave alone thinking with God and not Spirit filled. We spend our days on what I call personal auto pilot!
A lot of people do not want to think, it is not in our cultures this is why we want movies or watch television all the time.
This is the reason we do not want school because it forces us to think. This is why people do not want churches that promote us to think with the bible. Yet the answers to our problems is proper thinking/ godly thinking.
Think with God’s mind.
Part 2
A lot of us do not want to think with God because we do not see it as important, when we want help, the only help we see is the physical help.
Why don’t like thinking, it is because it is not seen as crucial, it is seen as not important because it does not begin with an explosion.
What you need to know about, God’s things do not begin with a great explosion.
Number 23:19 says God is not a man. This means the way he does things is not the same way we do things.
Isaiah 55:8-9 “for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
If you notice the things of God does not begin big, like the things of the world or of people. The things of man and the world are interesting at the start they appear big and over time they become so small and insignificant.
I don’t know if you have noticed this?
The person who started by hating you, after some time they are no longer hating you. And someone who was good after years they are not bad any more.
The person who began as an enemy to you after sometime they are friends.
But the ways and things of God differ much with the ways and things of the world, they begin small and after sometime they became so huge. God brings in his word as a spark and after sometime it begins to have a huge part of our lives.
That’s why Zechariah 4:10 for who has despised the day of small beginnings? God begins small, in Genesis 2 he began with a couple of people to have human race. Genesis 12 he began with one man for a chosen race. He used the cross to bring in salvation of the whole world.
God begins small and what he begins has what we call divine invasion, it begins to take over small by small.
The problem is when man see small we confuse it with no progress, slow and small is how God does his things. But slow is not small.
As you walk with God, you will see small all the time but he begins to invade every aspect of our life and it becomes a huge part of our lives.
He not only invades your troubles but also your successes. He not only invades your relationships that have God but also those without God. He invades all of your family, your finances, your community, your conversations, your choices for and those choices against God.
God has what we call divine invasion. He gradually takes over bit by bit until all th areas became filled with Him.
That’s why there areas in our life, we have not trusted God for at all but now you can’t do anything until you inquire from him.
That’s what Deuteronomy 7:22 means. The Lord your God will put out those Nations before you little by little. God told Moses that he will destroy isreal enemies not at once but little by little. Even us as believers God will invade our lives little by little, he will win for us little by little.
Revelations 3:20 when God is allowed in as you hear him knock at the door of your heart, he comes in and begins to dine with you.
John the Baptist understood this well in John 3:30 he said now He(Christ) must increase and him as a human being decrease.
Thinking with God may begin as not crucial but the more you do it, when you will not do it, you will feel that something is missing.
It begins as though it is not important but it shall become huge in long run. When prayer is not making sense keep praying and it shall become huge, when reading your bible is not important now, do not keep it away keep reading. You will notice after sometime it will be so hard to do without.
The same with thinking, keep thinking. Keep thinking about his love, keep thinking about his goodness one day you will notice you can without it. You will find it difficult not thinking with God.
How we think is very influential, how you think is how you see yourself and the same you see other people and it is how you relate to God.
Look at the negative people, they see themselves negatively; they think negatively, they also see others negatively.
Matthew 12:34 “O generation of vipers, how can you being evil speak of good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
Think of God’s thoughts, His mind, His word the bible. We said the first step of thinking is His word. Get a verse, a Chapter or what he has done in your life reflect on it.
Part 3.
Romans 12::2 “And be not conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Two words used here conform and transform. But the world can never transform you, it can only conform you. Only something new and outside your real can.
Philippians 4:8 ” finally brethren whatsoever things that are true, that are honest, that are just, that are lovely, that are of good report. If there be any virtue and if there be any praise think on those things.”
There are 7 Greek words the bible uses for thinking but two are more crucial.
(Logizomai) which means to take inventory that is estimate
(phroneo) thinking that is connected to purpose
God wants to change you first, no matter the circumstance or the situation, whether it has been your fault or not, whether you meant to do it or you didn’t mean to do it. Whether it was fair or unfair, whether it is right or if it is wrong.
When you go to God, the first thing He wants to change is you in your thinking, many of us pray for change and yet God is like if I can change your situation without having changed your thinking, I would have done nothing.
God cannot change your you or your situation until he changes how you think. Because whatever is happening to you, is first affected by how you think.
Look at Joseph – He has been thrown in pit and latter sold as a slave, and in all he understood God to change my situation; he has to change my thinking. The moment Joseph allowed God to change his thinking, God made him the second in command of the nation they sold him as a slave.
In a crisis instead of asking how are you going to get me out of this, ask God to change your thinking! And this begins with thinking with his word. What are you saying now in this situation? Sadly in a situation thinking with God’s mind is something we rarely do.
Yet the answer to all of all your problem is understanding what God is saying now in this situation.
The only thoughts that matter to me is Jesus Christ’s and he has made it available in his word (the bible) when I think with God the whole world becomes a place of service, every place becomes an altar. Every place becomes a sanctuary, my enemies become my ministry and anybody becomes an opportunity.
Do you know why we do not want to think with God in a situation, instead of thinking with God’s word the first thing we ask is who is going to help me?
In a situation we do not see the word of God as a solution. And you know why? Because it does not come to me with a big explosion that we get from people.
God is a man, this means the way He does His things is not the way we men do his thoughts are not your thoughts and his ways are higher than ours.
What God does is so much different than what man does, the things of God does, begins with a spark.
Have you been in a situation, you will be through a crisis. Never allow your mind to be idle, Satan may take an advantage of it. And mostly men because its men who think nothing most of the time.
No matter the situation you are facing , no matter the circumstances connect to the mind of God. Proverbs 3:3-6 do not lean on your understanding.
Remember we have this mind, it is not something we need to find somewhere, it is with us, he do not have to ask God for it. We just have to connect to what we have.
In Romans 5:2 you have access to it.
You have been empowered to think with God, God created you with a brain to reason and at the point of birth and at the point of salvation he gave you his mind, so that you can think with him. People instead of thinking they chose to let their emotions lead them. Yet our emotions was never designed to think but to react to situations.
This is why we end up in depression, anxiety, Punic attack. In most crisis we do not those with God, we just react. We spend most of our day not using our brains. People do not want to think leave alone thinking with God.
Nothing pains some people more than thinking, that’s why they do not want a church that uses the bible. They want to be told things than being given the bible.
Without Godly thinking we are very selfish people. When I think with God, I do not have enemies, instead of hurting I build because that’s the mind of God.
When Paul say let this mind be in you which was in Christ, he means 5 things.
It is possible to think this way. Every person in this room can have this same mind as of Jesus Christ. It is possible to think this way and when I think this way?
In verse 3 I can do things without strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind. I can esteem others better than myself.
In verse 4 I can forsake my things and live at the things, and look at the things of others
In verse 6 I can let go the most precious thing for the sake of other as Christ gave up divinity and took on humanity.
Paul is saying that this kind of Christianity is attainable all of us can have this same mind as Christ.
Whether you are saved today or you have been saved for 20 years in Christianity you don’t have to wait to be good to think with God.
On your worst day you can be like Micah in Micah 7 his worst day, he thought with God.
David in 2 Samuel 24 David on his worst day he thought with God.
When you are wrong or right, think with God.
If I think with God in sin I will not sin for long, I won’t keep sinning. If you want to get rid of weakness think with God.
If you think this way you think like Christ. As a man thinks and so he is. There was a movement in the 90’s known as WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? (WWJD). You do not need to have bracelets to know what Christ would do? Because he would think with his father.
If you think with Christ you will be like Christ, you will chose like Christ, you will live like Christ, you will walk like Christ. This begins with thinking.
Take care of what you think and the way you think, because how you think leads your legs. If you have noticed It is not the head that follows the legs but the legs follow your head. If you want your legs to go in better place think well with your head.
The only way to be spiritual is to think well, the only think that matter is my thoughts if my thoughts are in a right place also is spirituality. Spirituality is not attire we chose to put on or a certain uniform, it is not telling people that you are a Christian, it is not rosary, it is not putting on religious symbols those things do not make me spiritual. It is the thought of God that make me spiritual. Spirituality is being occupied with the thoughts of God.
If you want to be spiritual think with God. his thoughts which is the bible.
Thinking this way is a choice everyone should consider. It is up to us we can do it or not. But if we do not do it? It may result is huge mistakes of our lives. Like in 2 Samuel 11 and 12 David did not think with God and made massive mistakes, he killed a man and impregnated his wife all because he chose not to think with God.
2 kings 1 and 2 Solomon was an amazing leader because he thought with God but chapter 3 and 4 he did not think with God and he married strange women who influenced him to worship idols.
Adam and Eve lost paradise because of choosing not to think with God. it is shocking what you can do when you do not think with God.
THREE WAYS MOST CHRISTIANS THINK.
1. Many of us think without God. And yet we are born again, we have the Holy Spirit inside us, we have the mind of Christ but yet we do not think with God. We rather trust our previous experience, our education or our culture. We think we are big enough now that we can lead our life.
2. We think about God. This is what religious people usually do, they always think about God because of their consciousness of right and wrong. Sometime we are forced to think about God when we are faced with a crisis, may be someone has broken into our house or may be one of our beloved one dies, or someone is sick or we are sick. In these scenarios we begin to think about God. it is not bad to think about God sometime it may lead us in the right place where we will eventually think with God. best example is Genesis 5:20-21 Enoch for 65 years of his life, he had no relationship with God but at that age he begot a son whose name was Methuselah who would be the oldest man in the bible.
But as his son was born something happened and he started thinking about God and it led him into thinking with God and eventually walking with God.
But sometime it cannot yield fruits like in Acts 26:28 king Felix met Paul who gave him the gospel which made him to think about God, but he refused to go beyond that so he replied “you almost persuaded me to become a Christian”
3. Thinking for God. This I find it mostly in those who are a mature in Christianity and those who have been to theological schools. Sometime you know so much and that too much is danger to you. Sometime we begin to think that we know more. We forget 1cor 8:1 and 2 knowledge puffs up and no one knows anything as you ought.
No matter how much you know, no matter how long you have been in Christianity, it is not enough. Think with God.
