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Whose mind do you have?

Did you ever meet someone whose mind you wanted to pick? Ever catch yourself wanting to slice off even a tiny portion of someone’s brain in the hopes of enhancing your own? Maybe it’s your classmate who’s so brilliant at Math and every time you ask her for help she says, “But that’s so easy!” Or maybe it’s a great author, artist, leader, or teacher who just captures you with everything they say and do. You wonder where they get their ideas and wish you could do the same thing.

I find myself thinking this often. In college I had two profs in particular whose minds I really wanted to clone and bring around with me. Having immediate access to their immense wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and experience would greatly improve the way I work and live. It would be like all those movies and cartoons where the power of two people or more people are united in a single body! Like the mental version of The One!

Even classier, now in French!

I used to think such musings were better suited for science fiction. I mean, that’s never gonna happen right? Then I read this passage in the Bible the other day that threw a whole new light on it. 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 says,

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:

For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Did you get that ending?! Basically, he’s talking about how people without the Spirit of God cannot, try as they might (though they probably really aren’t trying, because even the impetus to try is from God, but that’s another story), know the thoughts of God. On the other hand, people with the Holy Spirit of God CAN KNOW the thoughts of God! (at least some of them) Acts 2:38 says that people who put their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour receive the Holy Spirit. So all believers have access to the mind of Christ!

To paraphrase the passage above, people who don’t know Jesus can’t get the thoughts of God because they’re on a totally different wavelength, the level of the spirit. But people who do know Jesus and have a relationship with Him, can pick up on those signals because they know Him. We would never ever be able to think like God does on our own, but with the Spirit in us, we will.

The thought is exciting! Think of how much better you would be in life if you could access the thoughts of God before making every decision. I know of hundreds of moments where I clearly made the wrong decision because I didn’t bother to tune in to the Spirit by spending time alone in prayer and reading the Bible. I used to think it was a hit-or-miss thing.

It’s not.

It’s available to all who know Jesus and put their trust in Him. The only question now is will we tap into His wisdom?

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