It’s A Mindset

May 28, 2023

Dr. Paul Cannings

Trusting God can be a challenge, especially when it involves us changing our mindset about life issues, our lifestyle, or anything we may desire to do. It is a more profound challenge when we grow up listening to people we deeply love and who may have shared adages that we found meaningful with good results. The challenge is even worse when confronted with something we hold deep convictions for. An example is `ignorance is bliss.’ This obviously contradicts scripture (the Bible, a lot of words).

This process is the same as we would see in the days of Christ. Christ “came to His own and His own did not receive Him.” (John 1:11) Christ did not teach anything that was not established as sound doctrine in the Old Testament because He is the Word and was always the Word (John 1:1-4), and all things are through Him (Colossians 1:15-18). However, to the Jewish leaders who added three hundred more laws to the Mosaic Law, Christ, the Word, was considered a false teacher. No matter how many supernatural miracles He did. No matter how glorious these miracles were, they still did not believe He spoke from God. So, it is not like supernatural miracles can move people to do whatever the Lord says to them today.

For our mindset to decisively change to Christ, we need first to make a willful decision to trust Christ because we fundamentally accept, He is the truth (John 14:6), and He cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18). This alone does not transform us (1 Corinthians 8:1-2); the Jewish leaders prove that. It is when we apply ourselves to the second thing. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Heb 5:14; NIV). “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7; NIV) As we see in Hebrews 5:14, we must decide to eat solid food. Just wanting to eat infant food can cause us to eventually turn away from God (Hebrews 6:1-8) and develop a hard heart towards the Lord (Ephesians 4:17-19). The third challenge occurs when the Lord’s Word conflicts with our actions. 

We need to immediately confess sin with a heart to change (John 21:15-17). The next step is accepting trials as Christ’s love language (I know, crazy, huh; Hebrews 12:7-11; James 1:2-4). Fifth, commit to using your spiritual gift because together, it grows us to be just like Christ (Ephesians 4:12-13, 16). Lastly, commit to love those you hate (Matthew 4:43-48).

We must decide to lose our minds in Christ and walk in His Ways (2 Peter 1:3-4). This teaches us to trust Him rather than nail Him to the cross when He contradicts our convictions or passions.