The Mind of Christ!

(1Corinthians 2:16) "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ”.

Last night was an evening full of thoughts under the yoke of restlessness, yet in the hustle of that turmoil there was nevertheless an underlying banner of peace which seemed to surround me. My body ached, my mind raced with many thoughts and as soon as I locked onto a particular consideration to explore and unpack my heart in the matter another idea would replace it. Even now I have a lot going through my mind at the same time. Where to start? That is an easy answer, now that I reason with a correct rational, we must always start and finish with the same character in consideration, yes without exception our great Saviour must captivate the beginning and end of all thoughts and deliberations, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the great “I AM” and He is known to us as the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything short of this will skew our perception! How you may ask? I remember awhile back when those rubber band type bracelet first came out, and one of them had the letters, W.W.J.D printed on them. It was meant to be a help to get Christians to stop and consider their actions prior to any decision making, as they glanced at their bracelet, they would then be reminded to ask themselves, “What Would Jesus Do”? Now whether the money preachers saw that as an opportunity to exploit the hearts of men with that type of marketing, as they would use guilt to generate income, I do not know, but God Knows! He will have His vengeance and no stone shall be left unturned.

However the underlying point behind the bangle would be to put on the mind of Christ, which is doctrinally correct, as we must put on the mind of Christ. “But we have the mind of Christ”! It must however be His mind and not the opinions of the masses. That is why ever deliberation must start with Him and end with Him, as He is the written Word, all scripture points to Him in one form or another, at times we may have to uncover many layers to see Him in scripture, but if you study hard enough He will always be found! The Bible is our only point of reference, obviously we must and should read other sources, so long as their point of reference is the Bible, it must be in context and unpacked with clear exposition. They should not leave you confused, it should be concise and their clarification should not be “hop scotch” (always changing and jumping around). If we have eyes to see, that means God has opened our eyes, we have received the gift of regeneration and therefore we can see! Give a child a stone and tell him to eat it and see what he does. In like manner give a true child of God perverse doctrine and see how much of it he actually eats. It won’t be long before he realises that what he is being fed is not about his Alpha and his Omega! Run for the hills I say, flee to the good Shepherd and learn from Him. Get those who love sound doctrine to lead you, but never follow a bad leader.

“When a man chooses a bad leader for his soul, at the end of all bad leadership there is a ditch.
A man teaches error which he declares he has drawn from Scripture, and he backs it up with texts perverted and abused. If you follow that error, and take its teacher for a leader, you may for a time be very pleased with yourself for knowing more than the poor plain people who keep to the good old way, but, mark my word, there is a ditch at the end of the error. You do not see it yet, but there it is, and into it you will fall if you continue to follow your leader.

At the end of error there is often a moral ditch, and men go down, down down, they scarce know why, till presently, having imbibed doctrinal error, their moral principles are poisoned, and like drunken men they find themselves rolling in the mire of sin.
At other times the ditch beyond a lesser error may be an altogether damnable doctrine. The first mistake was comparatively trifling, but, as it placed the mind on an inclined plane, the man descended almost as a matter of course, and almost before he knew it, found himself given over to a strong delusion to believe a lie.

The blind man and his guide, whatever else they miss, will be sure to find the ditch, they need no sight to obtain an abundant entrance into that.
Alas! to fall into the ditch is easy, but how shall they be recovered? I would earnestly entreat especially professing Christians, when novelties of doctrine come up, to be very cautious how they give heed to them. I bid you remember the ditch.
A small turn of the switch on the railway is the means of taking the train to the far east or to the far west: the first turn is very little indeed, but the points arrived at are remote.
There are new errors which have lately come up which your fathers knew not, with which some are mightily busy, and I have noticed when men have fallen into them their usefulness ceased. I have seen ministers go only a little way in speculative theories, and gradually glide from latitudinarianism into Socinianism (a follower of Laelius and Faustus Socinus, Italian theologians who preached belief in God, but rejected other traditional Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the divinity of Christ- “my explanation and insert”) or Atheism. Into these ditches thousands fall. Others are precipitated into an equally horrible pit, namely, the holding nominally of all the doctrines in theory and none of them in fact.

Men hold truths nowadays with the bowels taken out of them, and the very life and meaning torn away. There are members and ministers of evangelical denominations who do not believe evangelical doctrine, or if they do believe it they attach but little importance to it; their sermons are essays on philosophy, tinged with the gospel. They put a quarter of a grain of gospel into an Atlantic of talk, and poor souls are drenched with words to no profit.

God save us from ever leaving the old gospel, or losing its spirit.” C.H.Spurgeon

-posted by the PyroManiacs website

“Apply your heart to instruction and your ear to words of knowledge. Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.” (Proverbs 23:12-13)

In like manner we must cling to sound doctrine as if our lives depended upon it, as it does! We must repent when needed and flee from the error of all wolves in sheep’s clothing.

May our merciful and great gracious God give us eyes to see even with more clarity, so that we may in turn glorify Him. Always remembering our Saviour and His accomplishments on Calvary’s Hill!

We will only ever stand by His merit and never our own value, outside of Him! Praise his name now and forever more!

Today let us remember to “put on the breast-plate of righteousness”!

Signing off

Tyrone