So . . . it’s been kind of an annual event. I went back and looked at my journaling for the past 5 years on the day when I hit this point in my reading plan . . . and every year I’ve put down some thoughts on the same subject. Though I’ve read, this morning, about God’s less than conventional military strategy at Jericho (Judges 6) . . . though I’ve been reminded that my Jesus taught as One who had authority (Mark 1) . . . though I’ve experienced the desperation of the psalmist pleading with God to remember the people God had redeemed (Psalm 74) . . . what lingers after my four readings this morning is, once again, the amazing assertion of 1Corinthians 2 . . .

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.   (1Corinthians 2: 14-16 ESV)

But we have the mind of Christ. A “secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (2:7) has been imparted to those who, by faith, are in Christ. “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (2:12). Things which can only be “spiritual discerned” are being “taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual” (2:13). The “wisdom of this age” is doomed to pass away (2:6) . . . but we have the wisdom of God which endures forever.

Every year I come upon this passage . . . and every year I am absolutely blown away with the idea of having the mind of Christ. It’s enough to give you a big head . . . not because of pride . . . but because of all the stuff God wants to cram into my wee brain concerning His vast wisdom . . . “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (2:10).

There is no limit to the storehouse of the spiritual understanding available to the believer. There is no area of life . . . no circumstance encountered . . . no trial entered . . . no problem presented . . . no pursuit possible . . . that we don’t have the potential to address it with a thought pattern that transcends the wisdom and ways of this world. No wonder Paul says to the Romans that we can be absolutely transformed by the renewal of our minds . . . that we are able to discern God’s will, His good and acceptable and perfect will (Rom. 12:2).

And how’s that possible? Certainly not because of my IQ . . . but solely and exclusively because of God’s PQ (coined that term last year) . . . God’s Power Quotient . . . the Spirit of God . . . infused into all who believe . . . making alive and real the words of God . . . “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (2:5).

It’s because of this reality that reading about Jericho jazzes me . . . that imagining Christ teaching with the authority of One who sourced the truth Himself awes me . . . that reflecting on the psalmist’s desperation for God moves me. Whew! You think about what having the mind of Christ opens up, and it’s enough to get you ramped up!

Why wouldn’t I determine to be more in the Scriptures . . . why wouldn’t I seek to commune more with God . . . why wouldn’t I, by His grace, seek to live more and more in a real-time awareness of the Spirit’s active agency in my life? I don’t know . . . why wouldn’t I?

Way better then anything else . . . able to shed light on everything else . . . such is the mind of Christ. And I have been given the mind of Christ . . . by His grace alone . . . for His glory alone . . .

Wonder what I’ll write about, Lord willing, next year.