Have you ever heard something and thought to yourself that what the person said is a fabrication? Yet, many seem to listen and believe, because the person talking has power or position or writes a newspaper column. You wonder how those around aren’t seeing the lie in his words, as you do. Do they have blinders on, you ask yourself.
In a way, they do. They are blinded by the world around them and the culture they live in. They are blinded by circumstances, and their past experiences. They live pre-conditioned to believe whatever someone with more money says, or someone who is an elected official. Listen to the world viewpoint of a policeman who deals with crime and people’s dishonesty day in and day out and you’ll discover his jaundiced outlook on life.
Unless that person is a Christ follower. Paul, an exposed zealot, and persecutor of Christ who met the Lord on the roadway one
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day, tells us in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 16, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” He understood the difference. He knew what he believed and who he listened to before he met Christ and how his thinking changed after he had his encounter with God.
Paul tells us that we have the mind of Christ, the author of all truth. Christ said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life …” If we’ve asked Jesus to sit on the throne of our life, to guide us, then we have His knowledge of truth or fiction that the world does not have. They do not have the filter or discernment that we have access to, and so they listen to lies as if it were truth.
When someone comes to you to ask for prayer, do you see the truth behind their words? Are you able to pray just what that person needs. God is not the only one listening when you pray. Have you ever encountered a look of astonishment on the face of that person whom you’ve laid before the Lord? The words you spoke touched the heart of the matter even if they hadn’t spoken them aloud. A man once told me that I had a direct line to God but in reality I have the mind of Christ because I am a Christ follower.
Know whom you believe and why you believe it. Learn the difference between what’s been given to you because you follow Christ, and what the rest of the world lacks because they don’t. Don’t judge them by the same standards but love them into the Kingdom so that they, too, will have the Mind of Christ.
(an excerpt from More Than Bells, Devotions on Prayer)
Barbara Ann Derksen has written five devotionals to date and is working on the sixth. Her books are read all across the US and Canada with a few, so far, sold in Europe.
Coming Soon – More Than Bells, Devotions on Prayer
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