WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CHRISTIAN MIND?

Immaturity & Spiritual Growth in the Life of the Believer

[A transcript of a Talk given in the UK by Alan Morrison in 2001, to the Cumbria branch of the Prophetic Witness Movement International, in a local primary school in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. The audience was largely made up of the many people who had left many of the churches in the area as a result of them being infected by the so-called “Toronto Blessing”, a phony “move of God” (as it was known) in which people fell down en masse while having fits of laughter and making animal noises. This talk was an expansion of an article Alan had earlier written in August 1996. NB: If you would like me to send you a copy of the incidental piece mentioned in this talk, entitled “When Religious Freedom Becomes a Crime”, please request it from diakrisis-project@outlook.com, giving me your email address]

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever read Jude’s letter in the Bible? Some people might just skim over it and say: “Well it’s just a few verses; and it seems to be a rather negative letter, so it’s not really for me”. But did you know that Jude was originally going to write about something entirely different? He was going to write about, as he says, “salvation” (Jude 3). That was the original aim: to write about salvation and the glory of Christ. But instead, he says, “I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints”. There is a problem, he is saying. “I was going to write this highly spiritual letter about salvation, but the situation is so bad in the churches today that I need to write to you about the importance of the spiritual battle and how it is manifesting itself”. That is the essence of what he is saying.

To be honest, I would also far rather be speaking to you about the meaning of salvation; but developments in the world and in the church — along with their attendant deceptions — have been so far-reaching that I must speak with you about something else. Therefore, I am bringing a subject before you entitled: “Whatever happened to the Christian Mind?” Whatever did happen to the Christian Mind? Now that is a question and a half!

It is a strange fact that many people put spirit “here” and mind “over there”, with a big gulf between them. They say that there is the Spirit and the things of the Spirit and then there is this thing called “mind”, which is all about the intellect and thinking — and never the twain shall meet! In essence, they have created a kind of two-tier Christianity which claims that there is a “higher plane” of spiritual Christian, who is tuned into the Spirit, and then there is a lower breed of intellectual Christian, who is stuck in his or her mind. They don’t need to know anything at all about Bible teaching because, as they claim, they have a direct hotline to the Lord. If you were to speak to such people about the importance of teaching, they would respond along the lines of: “I don’t have any time for that because I’m a spiritual person, I’m not stuck in my head”. But to think or say such a thing is a dreadful mistake. It misunderstands completely the nature of spirit and the nature of mind; because in the Christian, the two should work dovetailed together, hand in hand. The Christian mind is a sanctified mind. Mind and spirit working together. But I run ahead of myself here…

My main point today is that something drastic has happened to the Christian mind. That is what lies behind the title of this talk. And it is a provocative question, is it not? “Whatever happened to the Christian mind?” It’s like saying, “Whatever happened to THAT?” Once it was like this and now it has become like THAT”. Maybe people will be offended by it. Nevertheless, that is what I want to look at briefly today.

What do I mean by “the Christian mind”? I guess you can have as many different definitions of the Christian mind as there are people to provide them. What is a Christian mind? Or let’s take it back one stage further. What is the mind? Just so that you know what I am talking about here when we speak of the mind, I am talking specifically about two primary things that the mind does. Two main things that the mind is about: first, reason, thinking, reasoning things through, logically and carefully and, second, weighing things up, discernment and all the other processes that go hand in hand with that. Reason and direction, the way that you want to go; that is what I am speaking about when I’m referring to the mind. It is what lies at the very heart of us, that works things out, that thinks things through, that weighs things up and also that decides on which direction we are going to take.

There are scriptures which speak of the use of the mind and its attributes: The Lord said to Solomon “I have given you a wise and understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:12), a discerning heart. That is what he gave to Solomon: The gift of understanding. And the Lord, even though “He directs [our] steps”, as it says in Proverbs 16:9, a person’s heart still “plans its way”. God works in us but we also have to do the work. We are not robots or puppets. So there is the use of the will on our part, making us go in various directions; and this involves the mind.

The mind also reveals who we really are: “As in water, face reflects face, so a man’s heart reveals the man” (Proverbs 27:19). The mind is a reflection of who you really are. You can ‘camp it up’ on the outside, you can doll yourself up on the outside, you can do all sorts of things to yourself, but when it comes down to it, it is what is in your heart, in your mind, that reflects who you really are.

Now I want to work through three main headings here. The first is “The Mind of the Natural Man”. Do you know what I mean by the natural man? I mean the unbeliever’s mind by nature in this world — what each one of us arrives with when we are born. The second main heading is: “What Does the Christian Mind Consist of”. What has taken place in the Christian mind to make it what is uniquely the Christian mind? And the third main heading is — coming back to our original question — “Whatever Happened to the Christian Mind?”

 I. THE MIND OF THE NATURAL MAN

When I am speaking about the human mind — and in particular when I am talking about the human mind throughout the whole of history and the way that the human mind has developed — I want you to know that all of this hasn’t taken place in a vacuum. There has been a big problem that goes right back almost to the very beginning of history. And that problem is the Fall of Man, the fall of our first parents. That Fall affected the human mind very deeply. Therefore, looking first at what has been the result of that Fall when we talk about the natural mind, the Bible shows that the natural mind of the unbeliever consists of a number of elements which have affected how that mind has developed.

However, when you become a genuine Christian, that “fallenmindedness” is supposed to be transformed and you have a completely different sort of mind. You should, by all accounts, have a totally new mindset, as we shall see in the next major section of this paper. In spite of that alleged transformation, the carryings-on in some of the churches, the goings-on in so many Christian minds, make one begin to wonder if such a change has really taken place in those minds.

This is why we are working in this paper under the headings we have chosen. First, we are looking at the state of the unconverted mind — the mind in its natural state; then we look at what should ideally (and Scripturally) be the state of the mind of the Christian believer, the spiritually transformed mind; finally, we will try to discover if the modern Christian mind has lived up to that ideal; and if not, why not?

So, what do we first discover from Scripture about the natural, unconverted mind? We discover that

1) The Natural Mind is a Corrupted Mind

The natural mind, the mind that we are born with, the unbelieving mind, is a corrupted mind. We have to start from that point. That is the mind that we are dealing with. That is the mind that we are interacting with when we are speaking to people in the world. The natural mind is a corrupted mind. It is beautifully laid out in Romans chapter 1. (Perhaps “beautifully” isn’t exactly the correct word; maybe it would be better to say “hideously” laid out). You can see it all there, culminating in the big climax: “…even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness” (v.28). And there then follows a list of all the things that had come into, and affected, and that are now part of the unbelieving mind, the mind in its natural state.

In Romans chapter 1, we see the descent into evil that took place as a result of the Fall, the result of the truth about God the Creator being exchanged for the lie that God can be whatever we want to make Him, which is the basis of idolatry. All of this is something that happens in the mind, is it not? The truth was exchanged for the lie; they didn’t honour the Lord; they didn’t worship Him as the Creator. And that is all something to do with the mindset of humanity. As a result of that corruption of the mind, idolatry came into being. Then, as a result of that idolatry came the collapse of true human sexuality, and all the rest of it, and all the problems that came about subsequently.

Do you see the centrality of the mind in this process of corruption? That once the mind starts to go awry, everything else falls down like a pack of cards. “To the pure all things are pure”, says Paul, “but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled” (Titus 1:15). That is the mind that we are speaking about. That is the mind of the world. It is the unbelieving, natural mind that thinks it is so sophisticated and civilized.

The human mind in its natural state is a corrupt mind. The very fact that the Lord Jesus said, “You must be born again”, shows that there is something seriously wrong with human nature. It is corrupted. As a result, the whole of the mind is corrupted.

The second thing which we discover from Scripture is that

2) The Natural Mind is at Enmity with God

 The apostle Paul reveals that “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7). He doesn’t say that the carnal mind merely behaves like an enemy towards God. He says that the carnal mind actually IS enmity against God. That is the reality of it. As an entity, it is enmity against God “for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:8). Therefore the mind acts irrationally. Sin is irrational. Sin is really the craziest thing on this earth. It is utterly crazy. The whole thing takes place in the human mind. “You”, says Paul to the Colossians, “you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works” (Colossians 1:21). Enemies in their minds. Right in the heart of the person.

So the natural mind is a corrupt mind, a mind at enmity with God. Furthermore,

3) The Natural Mind is Empty and Ignorant

We are speaking from a spiritual standpoint. There is no end to ordinary knowledge. Any mind can be filled up with that. But insofar as spiritual matters are concerned, the natural unconverted mind is a veritable desert. “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened” (Eph.4:17). What a profound ignorance that is! A futile mind and a darkened understanding.

Paul is not speaking here merely about natural ignorance. There are two kinds of ignorance. First, there is natural ignorance. We are all naturally ignorant at some stage. If you are naturally ignorant about something and you discover what the truth is about it, the healthy mind then acknowledges that ignorance and moves on from there with the new-found knowledge. Natural ignorance is an empty space needing to be filled with something which can be put there. However, there is also what we can call wilful ignorance which is totally different to natural ignorance. Whereas natural ignorance is a hole waiting to be filled, wilful ignorance thinks it is self-sufficient and in no need of new knowledge. It is when you say “Ha! I know everything there is to know about that”, or, worse, “I don’t need to know that”, when you DO need to do so. And that is the mind of a natural, untransformed person, the unbeliever’s mind, when it comes to spiritual things.

Paul rightly says, “in the futility of their mind”. The Greek word translated there as “futility” really means “emptiness, purposelessness, transitoriness” (Arndt-Gingrich Greek/English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature). That is the natural mind that Paul is speaking about here. It is the same kind of existential black hole as that described by the “preacher” in Ecclesiastes 12:8 and other verses, when he speaks about “vanity”, which is an old English word meaning empty. The Hebrew word translated there as “vanity” means, literally, “breath” or “vapour” — a puff of nothingness. Truly the unbelieving mind is vacuous — profoundly empty and deeply ignorant, indulging itself in meaningless things. A tragedy.

4) The Natural Mind is a Fleshly Mind

When Paul speaks of this “fleshly mind” in Colossians 2:18, he is talking about mystico-religious people who have their heads in the clouds, pseudo-spiritual people worshipping angelic beings and so forth. He speaks about such people as being “vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds”. The word “fleshly” describes someone who does not have the influence of God in his life. That is what it means by fleshly. It is merely flesh. There is no spiritual aspect there, just flesh. It is a description of the human being outside of God; a person who is devoid of spiritual substance. He is flesh alone; the Holy Spirit does not inhabit him. This is the condition of man as bereft of the Holy Spirit and no longer in the pure image of God, which has spread by nature to every man and woman after the first created people. This is what was meant in the Lord’s words, when He spoke of the corrupt nature of man shortly before he wiped out the human race in the judgement of the flood: “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh” (Genesis 6:3). He is indeed flesh; the Holy Spirit does not indwell him.

Man had so descended from grace as a result of the Fall that he was indeed just “flesh”, bereft of the indwelling Spirit of God which had been removed from him. This is corroborated by Jude when he describes sinful man as “not having the Spirit” (Jude 19). The Lord Jesus also clearly differentiated between two classes of human being: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6); the one is merely “in Adam”, the other “in Christ”.

From the first Adam, the human race has inherited a physical body; from the last Adam, Christ, believers inherit a spiritual body and are no longer merely “flesh” (1 Corinthians 15:45). And Paul also made a clear distinction between those who do not have the indwelling Spirit and those who do (to whom he was writing): “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Romans 8:8-9).

Those who do not have the Spirit of Christ are those who are merely the physical descendants of Adam — born just once — whereas those who have the Spirit of Christ are those who have been “born again” through the regenerating power of God (John 3:3). The original sin of the first Adam caused the withdrawal of the Spirit from man; the (sinless) last Adam (Christ) restores the Spirit in those who come to Him in faith and repentance. It is only those who repent and believe that have this original gift restored to them, thus having the Spirit as well as being ‘flesh’ (Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24).

The natural man, the one without Christ, is indeed flesh; the Holy Spirit does not inhabit him. He has a fleshly mind. This is the mind of the natural, untransformed human being.

5) The Natural Mind is Under the Power of Fallen Angels

This is something we have to acknowledge when we are dealing with the mind of the unbeliever. This is not just something that is happening in a vacuum. The apostle John says: “We know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway” — under the power — “of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19). Elsewhere, Paul speaks about those whose minds the God of this age (a sure reference to Satan) has blinded (2 Corinthians 4:4). The fact that coming to Christ is described as being “delivered from the power of darkness” (Colossians 1:13) more than implies that not to be in Christ involves being under that power, from which one needs delivering. The “power of darkness” is the authority which is wielded over the human race by the “rulers of the darkness of this age”, the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” — the satanic realm about which Paul speaks in Ephesians 6:12.

Without a doubt, the natural mind is a mind under the power of fallen angels, demons. We could go into this a great deal more here, but I have already done so in many other articles and talks. I do not want you to misunderstand me when I say this. For I am not implying that every single human being is actually possessed by demons. I am saying that the satanic realm exercises a massively powerful influence in this world over the unbelieving mind. The natural mind is a mind under the power of fallen angels, demons.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the human mind is the primary battle-zone in the cosmos. We are involved in a vast battle for the mind. Satan, waging his war by exercising power over the human mind (mind-control), and the evangelist wrestling for that mind by proclaiming the gospel. Let us go into this a little further.

To the unbeliever, the Lord says: “Repent and believe the gospel”. What a command! Straight into the mind of the unbeliever. Repent and believe the gospel. The word repent is a translation of the Greek word, metanoia, which involves a complete transformation of the mind, which is the heart of the human. That is what repentance is. The Lord expects a response from our minds. Even the unbeliever who acts irrationally, who has a corrupt mind — a debased mind, a crazy mind, a fleshly mind, an ignorant mind and an empty mind — even to such a person, the Lord says: “Repent, and have a transformed mind”. That mind must be changed. It is a command to the mind of the person. The Lord expects a response from the mind.

The gospel is addressed straight into the mind of a person. It is not some mystical kind of thing that takes place when the Gospel is preached — not at first anyway. The Gospel is propositional. It poses rational propositions to the minds of people. When you preach the gospel, you are telling someone: “This is what happened in space, time and history on a hill outside Jerusalem some 2000 years ago. As a result of this, your mind has to change”. The Lord expects a response of the mind. This is why I am not exaggerating when I say that the human mind is the primary battle-zone in this cosmos. That is what we are dealing with. And this, above all other reasons, is why the Christian mind has to be such an in-tune mind, such an incisive mind, such a powerful mind, a mind that works at full throttle, with great rationality and logical power.

[Incidentally, we must not confuse “rationality” with “rationalism”. There is a vast difference between (unhealthy) rationalism, whereby the miraculous is denied and the supernatural work of the Spirit is blasphemed, and (wholesome) rationality, whereby the Christian exercises necessary discernment and chooses that which is compatible with the law of God. We must not confuse these two vastly different terms].

Hopefully, we will come to appreciate the significance of all this soon; but that is what lies at the back of what we are speaking about:  The human mind is the primary battle-zone in the cosmos. The natural mind and the Christian mind are diametrically opposed to one another. Diametrically! The natural mind cannot understand the spiritual mind, but the spiritual mind understands the natural mind. That is a strange position to be in, is it not? But it is nevertheless the position that we inhabit.

So, the natural mind — the mind of the human without Christ — is a corrupted mind, is at enmity with God, is empty and ignorant, a ‘fleshly’ mind devoid of Spirit, and is also under the power of Satan. That is quite a litany of evil.

At this point, I want to move on to our next major heading, in order to ask the question:

II. WHAT DOES THE CHRISTIAN MIND CONSIST OF?

Let us have a look at the Christian mind now. Speaking ideally, what does the Christian mind consist of?

Well, firstly, a healthy Christian mind is

1) A Mind Unenslaved

As opposed to a mind unsaved, it is “un-enslaved”. Do you understand what I am saying here? This is very important. “You shall know the truth”, says the Lord, “and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). To know something which makes you free means a freedom that begins in the mind and involves it. There is no slavishness whatsoever in the life of a Christian. So it is a mind unenslaved. There is no slavery in the life of the Christian. There is service, but that is different. The Christian mind is a mind that has been freed — in countless ways, which we will now catalogue.

First, the Christian mind has been unenslaved in the sense that it has been

i. Freed from the Dominion of Sin

Paul makes that very clear: “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14). Sin can pull believers in a number of directions. It can sometimes turn us inside out; it can occasionally turn us upside down; and it can mess us up somewhat, temporarily. But it can never again achieve total, permanent dominion over those who are under grace rather than the law. We are free from that, even though Satan would try to convince us otherwise.

Second, the Christian mind has been unenslaved in the sense that is has been

ii. Freed from the Power of Satan

Paul puts it like this: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). As we said earlier, that “power of darkness” is the authority which is wielded over the human race by the “rulers of the darkness of this age”, the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” — the satanic realm about which Paul speaks in Ephesians 6:12. The Lord Jesus personally told Paul that He would send him to preach to the Gentiles “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). The reality for the one who has been “born of God” is that “the wicked one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18). The Christian mind is a mind which has been delivered from the power of Satan.

Third, the Christian mind has been unenslaved in the sense that it has been

iii. Freed from the Need for Fearful Superstition

Superstition is a form of slavery born from fear. But “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). Yet everywhere we look in the Christian scene, we see superstition born out of fear of one sort or another. Even many of those believers who think of themselves as being totally free of superstition, who would sneer at people who kneel before Mary or who cross themselves at an altar, even they have their own little idols, their little things about which they are also very superstitious. I have seen very many Christians who are totally screwed up by all kinds of fears, deep-seated fears, which have resulted in numerous superstitions. Continual fear of punishment for wrongdoings; continual fear that one hasn’t done enough for divine acceptance; fear of demons; fear of pastors; fear of failure; fear of how others see them; etc. Yet, the mind of the genuine Christian should be entirely free of superstition, which is a form of bondage born of fear.

Fourth, the Christian mind has been unenslaved in the sense that it has been

iv. Freed from All Addictions

“All things are lawful for me”, says Paul, “but I will not be brought under the power of anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). I will not… no way! he said. The reason? Because that will be an affront to the freedom I have in Christ. I am free to do anything in the world which is not sinful — but I will not become addicted to or fixated on anything— whether it is sex, cigarettes, sweets, workouts, computers or even the religion of “Christianity” [let the listener understand]!

So the Christian mind is a mind unenslaved. It has been freed from the power of sin and the power of Satan. It has been freed from superstitions. It has been freed from addictions. This is hardly surprising, considering the fact that the Christian is described as “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The Christian mind is, secondly,

2) A Mind Under Constraint

Paul says to Timothy: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). The Greek word translated here as “self-control” (or “sound mind” in some translations) is σωφρονισμός, sophronismos, which means, literally, a mind that is under self-control; a mind that is moderate; a mind that does not crave excess or over-the-topness. It is a mind that is under constraint through self-discipline. It is a mind that indulges in “prudent (sensible) behavior that ‘fits’ a situation” (from Helps Word Studies in Strong’s Concordance).

In other words, it is a mind that is cool — in the best sense. It is cool, but not cold. To be cool does not mean being devoid of emotion but being on top of things, self-disciplined. It is a mind that is cool, under control. The Lord gave us great power to have control over ourselves and over our lives and over the way that we behave, the things that we do, who we hang out with. The true Christian is cool. The Christian should actually be the coolest person around — not in a ‘poserish’ manner but absolutely naturally. The Christian has a mind that is under constraint. “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (Proverbs 25:28). That does not mean that it is a repressed mind, like some kettle which is boiling away and the top is on it and it’s bursting in all directions! No. It is under constraint with self-control. It is sober-minded. That doesn’t mean dour, or dull, or boring. Just cool. It knows the limits. Not the manmade restrictive limits of pharisaic repression and suppression but the divine limits which span the universe but which keep us from destroying ourselves and our souls. The Christian mind is a mind which seeks to find the right level in all things.

The description in the Gospels of the man with a former legion of demons is that he is now “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind” (Luke 8:35). That is cool. It is a mind that is under control. Beforehand, the guy was running around in the tombs, cutting himself and no one could constrain him at all. The next minute, he is just sitting there. He is in his right mind. There is a deliberate contrast in that demoniac between the natural mind and the Christian mind. Formerly, he is in chaos and self-destruction. After being ministered to by Christ, he is “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind”. The Greek word used there for “right mind” is σωφρονοῦντα, sōphronounta, which is based on exactly the same root as that which Paul uses in 2 Timothy 1:7, sophronismos, a disciplined mind. That is the Christian mind. Cool.

The healthy Christian mind, thirdly, is

3) A Mind Called to be Under Continual Renewal

I say, “called to be under continual renewal” because, as Paul says: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). He is implying here that this renewal is not merely a one-time event. This is something that is an ongoing thing throughout the whole of the Christian life. It is something that we keep on coming back at, again and again, as long as we remain here. It is in order that “you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2).

I do not want to go into this one too deeply at this point. I shall reserve that for my next main heading examining what happened to the Christian mind. But suffice it to say at this point that the call is there for the Christian mind to avoid being in a rut; to avoid following any traditional patterns merely for tradition’s sake; to avoid merely conforming to the demands of other people, and instead to be highly original in a way that is acceptable to the Lord alone. He is the only one to whom we need to conform. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of us so long as we are acceptable to the Lord (cf. Luke 6:26). Resisting that one is difficult — very difficult — as many believers conform themselves solely to how some human says that they should behave or to what he/she says they should wear, or read, or think, or do.

This does not mean we have to become awkward creatures for the sake of being awkward. It simply means that we have to rest on the fact that we do not have to be conformed to anything on the outside. It is the Lord to whom we have to be conformed. I stress this because there are many people in churches these days who give you a thousand and one rules that you have to fulfil, and they’re all made up by human beings to fit their pre-conceived and very limited religious ideas. Frankly, these manmade rules constitute an even bigger burden than the Pharisees placed on the people of their day. So “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. The mind of the Christian is a mind which is called to be under continual renewal.

Fourthly, the healthy Christian mind is

4)  A Protected Mind 

A wonderfully protected mind. “And the peace of God”, says Paul, “which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). Do you know what he is speaking about here? What is the peace of God which passes all understanding? It is assurance of salvation. That is the only thing that can bring a person spiritual peace. “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). How do you have peace with God through Jesus Christ? Through what Jesus Christ has done for us in taking away the enmity between us and the Lord and bringing us into an eternal relationship with Him. It is the sure knowledge of this salvation that brings assurance of salvation. This is the real peace of God which guards our hearts and minds.

Today, there are zillions of Christians running around like headless chickens with no assurance whatsoever. This is why they seek assurance in other things, such as material wealth and health, or bogus miracles or phony signs and wonders. But true inner assurance of faith is the central plank in the Christian life. To be assured of the fact that you have been saved. Sadly, there are some people who seem to think that it is very trendy to have no assurance. “It’s too presumptuous”, they say. “You could lose your salvation tomorrow”. So they say. We could go down that road here, soundly refuting the awful notion that genuine Christians can lose their salvation — a blasphemous lie if ever there was one. But we’ll save it for some other time and articles. Suffice it to quote Jesus’ words:

“My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and the Father are one”.

John 10:27-30

The Christian mind is a protected mind. When the Scripture says, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7), that is the protection which comes through knowing you have been saved. The peace of God will guard your heart and mind from the dangerous idea that you can lose your salvation. It is a protected mind. You cannot go off the deep end with that kind of knowledge. With that kind of knowledge — knowing what is without a doubt ahead of you — you will be less likely to fall into sin or any kind of consistent moral failure. That is why the assurance of the Christian is so paramount. One of the great works of a true pastor is to encourage all of his flock to have that assurance of faith that they are genuine heaven-bound Christians.

Fifthly, under this second main heading, the healthy Christian mind is

5)  A Worshipful Mind

The Lord calls us to worship Him, not just with our emotions, but with our minds as well. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:7). With all your mind. Your mind is as involved in worship as every other part of your being. Or, at least, it should be!

Yet, so often, it is as if we are being encouraged to leave our minds behind when we enter the realm of worship — as if the mind was somehow a hindrance to true worship. I remember a guru called Sri Bhagwan Rajneesh (if I remember rightly, he had 47 Rolls-Royces and a lot of money!) who used to say to his followers before they came into meetings: “You must leave your mind outside the door with your shoes”. Well I have actually heard that said in so many words at professing ‘Christian meetings’, as if the Christian mind is a hindrance. What an appalling mistake! The mind is as involved as everything else about us in worship and in everything that we are involved in concerning our communing with the Lord. He interacts with our mind and our mind makes worship.

Sixthly, the healthy Christian mind is

6)  A Reasonable Mind

The Lord expects a very great deal of our minds. I don’t know if you are aware of this. He expects a response from our minds. He interacts and exchanges with our minds. That is why I say that it is a mistake to think that to be “in the Spirit” is to be out of your mind, or to think that spirit (or Spirit) and mind have no part together. That is not the case at all.

What did Jehovah say to the people of Judah? “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). That is an amazing thing to say to a group of irrational people. The Lord was engaging his people in a debate concerning the nature of their sins. “Let’s reason this whole thing through together — let us think about this rationally, logically, together”. “Use your mind”, the Lord is saying. “Examine yourself concerning what’s been happening here”. Because their entire behaviour was completely irrational and crazy. Their very existence was based on miraculous works of God, yet they had begun to seek their destiny in other things. The Lord was here reminding them that only He could forgive their sins and give them new life. He was saying: “Just look at this rationally; how can you behave like this when it’s Me who has given you your very existence as a nation? Let’s think this thing through together”.

The Lord expects a response from our minds. If you apply logic to your sinful situation, you’ll soon see just how crazy it is. The mind of the believer is a reasonable mind. It knows how to reason things through in a sane and rational manner.

Seventhly, and finally, the healthy Christian mind is

7)  The Mind of Christ

Paul says: “…we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Now that is an amazing thing, is it not? What does he mean by that? It doesn’t mean that we have attained to divinity! It doesn’t mean that we have “the inner Christ” dwelling within us, as is trendily claimed in New Consciousness circles, or that we have suddenly become Christ himself! [I have actually heard people saying things like this!]. What it means is that we are in-tune with the desires and purposes of Christ for our lives. It means that the same values and attitudes that Christ has are also our values and our attitudes. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

We have the mind of Christ. That means following the attitude and values of Christ as honestly and perfectly as possible in this limited existence of ours. No-one can be utterly perfect until we go to glory. But as honestly and perfectly as possible, we are to have the same attitude and values as Christ and seek to be conformed to everything that he stands for. In this way, we have the mind of Christ. That is a tall order, is it not? It is an extraordinary thing to live up to. Fortunately, “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

That is the Christian mind in a nutshell. You could probably think of a thousand and one other attributes of the Christian mind, but I just wanted to name a few things before we move on to our third main heading, and to the heart of this talk.

III. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CHRISTIAN MIND?

Well, in five short words: It went out to lunch! I guess I’d better expand on that…

But before I do so,  I want you to realise that what we are saying here about the mind has nothing whatsoever to do with any intellectual failure. What I am speaking of has got nothing to do with failing to be brainy or academic or any of that sort of thing.

There is something amazing about the Christian mind which you need to know and understand:  It doesn’t matter how much or how little “intelligence quotient” (IQ) one has. It doesn’t matter how many qualifications you might have. It doesn’t matter how much homespun wisdom you might have accumulated in your life. It doesn’t matter about our intellectual capacity and all that kind of thing. That doesn’t make any difference whatsoever to our standing before God or our ability to learn and to mature. It is actually irrelevant. For Christianity is the great leveller. Everybody called to Christ has the same source of true wisdom available to them, regardless of their human intellectual capacity. (Although to read some Christian writers and to hear their sermons, you would think that it was necessary to have a Ph. D to stay the course!). So, the question is “Whatever happened to the Christian mind?”

What I am saying here is that the Christian mind today has, in large measure, gone “out to lunch”, abandoned its moorings, gone ‘on the blink’; and it has nothing whatsoever to do with academic intellect. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying here; the intellect of the Christian man, woman or child will very naturally increase in power and ability regardless of education or background. If people are diligent, they will grow in intellectual capacity. I know of completely uneducated, illiterate folks who, after coming to Christ, learned to read solely so they could read the Bible and arm themselves with truth. The illiterate person who comes to Christ has just as much of a powerhouse of divine knowledge available to him or her as the “high-flyer” who has a Ph.D. To be frank, an excess amount of academic qualifications is probably a hindrance to a person developing correctly as a Christian. Too many letters after your name can put too much hot air in that head of yours!

As a brief aside, let me give you an amusing anecdote regarding this. The principal of a leading evangelical theological seminary wrote to me recently to criticize an article entitled, “When Religious Freedom Becomes a Crime”, which I had written about the new French anti-cult law. However, in the course of his very brief letter, he did not provide a single argument, only insults. It seems that he didn’t like me writing about something that he regarded as HIS territory, and about which he thought he knew everything there is to know. I couldn’t help noticing that underneath his signature, at the end of his letter, there were no less than twelve lines of self-written accolade giving his academic “letters”, his professional society memberships, his vocational achievements, including his authorship of more than 50 books and all his entries in “Who’s Who” in America, France and the whole wide world. In fact, his personal accolade was longer than the e-mail he wrote to me! I duly wrote a brief response to this self-proclaimed “Dr. Professor” and expressed surprise that such an important and learned man should have no arguments or dialogue on a subject on which he claimed to be an expert, and I also mentioned that with such a lengthy accolade and with all those letters after his name, how come I had never heard of him. He immediately responded with a terse, acerbic reply, which began by saying: “Dear Mr Morrison, if you knew ANYTHING about either apologetics or the international and comparative law of human rights, you would have heard of me”. He then followed with a gruff sentence stating that my article was “adolescent”, and that I was obviously “an eccentric cronk” [sic], and then abruptly signed off. And still there were no arguments, there was no dialogue, no attempt to communicate. This is one classic example of paucity of the Christian mind today, trapped in shibboleths and tradition and wanting to knock down any “new kid in town” who is a threat to their domain.

Oh, how letters and intellectual achievements can go to a man’s head! The Christian scene is stuffed full of such people in colleges and pulpits everywhere. I would far rather be an “eccentric ‘cronk’” than a big-deal professor/pastor with an oversized ego. My friends, when you get hot under the collar because someone hasn’t heard of you, the time has come for you to go for a refresher course in being a lesser mortal! Surely, a REAL Christian teacher would have found a way of trying to help me understand where my “adolescent” thinking was defective or illogical or poorly argued. Even a good secular teacher would have done that. I just hope that none of you will be attending this man’s seminary. How can one take a spiritual leader seriously if his ego is the size of the former World Trade Center? One day, that ego will make as big a heap of ashes as those towers (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15)!

I share this with you, at this point in this paper, as a graphic illustration of how, even with a multitude of letters and supposedly Christian achievements after your name, you can still be extremely immature, self-centred and irrational. You see, my friends, the mistake which many have made is in thinking that all they have to do is to be converted or profess conversion and then they don’t have to do anything else at all in order to grow as people. They assume that it will all somehow be done to them; the Lord will deal with them, He’ll sort it all out, leave it to Him. It is as if they imagine that the Lord will simply work on them supernaturally and change them and they won’t have to lift a finger. This is a terrible mistake, and one which has led to so much foolishness, arrogance and unpleasantness in the Christian scene. If God fixed everything for us without us ever having to do anything, He might as well have created a perfect world in the first place. But the world has come through the long, dark pathway of sin and death for a reason. This life is meant to be experienced personally, so that after having been regenerated we ourselves consciously change. We make the effort to do so. We do the work, so that we don’t end up like this guy who blusters when he is unrecognized!

Now it is true that in relation to salvation, there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. We can call out to the Lord, but that in itself is not what does the saving. It is the Lord who does the saving. We can’t work in tandem with God in order to get ourselves saved. He does the work. We cry out, He does the saving. We can plant, we can water, we can feed, but it is the Lord who gives the increase (2 Corinthians 3:6-7). However, while that is true in relation to salvation, it is not true in relation to what we can call ‘progressive sanctification’, the ongoing process of cleansing that takes place in a believer’s life. Are you with me here? Do you understand what I am saying? This is most important. While it is true that the Lord alone is responsible for saving us — because we cannot save ourselves — that is not the case in relation to what remains to be done within us throughout the rest of our lives after having been saved.

There is a heresy that was around a long time ago, which keeps resurging in various forms, called “synergism”. It refers to the mistaken idea that people can work hand-in-hand with the Lord in order to bring about salvation — that it’s not the Lord exclusively who works salvation in a person, but that we do it together with Him. In effect, Synergism says that without us, God couldn’t save us. However, the reality is that God alone saves (Ephesians 2:8-10). That is the very meaning of the name Joshua, which was given to the Son of God because He alone would save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). God alone is the author of salvation and the worker of it. Without Him, we can do nothing. However, although that is true in relation to salvation, it is NOT true in relation to the ongoing process of cleansing which takes place in the heart of the believer — what is known as ‘progressive sanctification’. And I think this is the main problem in relation to the Christian mind.

While it is also true that a sea-change should occur in the mind and heart of the one who comes to Christ at the point of transition to being a new creation, many who profess to having been “saved” have either never really made that transition or they are sitting on the laurels of it instead of growing those laurels from a sapling to a magnificent tree. There is an enormous number admonitions, warnings, in the New Testament about the development of the Christian mind (as we will later show). Now those warnings wouldn’t be there if the Lord was supposed to be doing all the work. If it was all up to the Lord, He would just reach into our brain and somehow manipulate our minds, tweak a few nuts and bolts and make everything okay. But the fact of the matter is that we have all these warnings given to us, and they are there for a purpose. And if we ignore these warnings, these admonitions, we do so at our peril. And I think one of the main reasons that there are so many problems in the Christian scene today is the failure to respond to these admonitions and warnings that have been given to us. This is what has resulted in a warped Christian mind.

Here are what I believe to be the six main failings which have led to the Christian mind, in such large measure, going “out to lunch”. The first failing which has led to the Christian mind going “out to lunch” is that

1)  It has Lost its True Focus

“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). But, in contradiction of that, the Christian mind began to walk by sight rather than by faith. And this has resulted in all sorts of crazy things happening in churches today. Why do you think that so many people who profess to be Christian are so dependent on the sight of what they imagine to be miracles in order to keep the faith. I’m talking about dependence here. I’m not saying that miracles cannot happen. I’m saying that there is a dependency on pyrotechnics and the spectacular! That unless there has been something stupendous happening, there’s nothing much happening at all. That is the attitude, the mindset. Unless there is some amazing thing that they can come back and report, there is nothing much going on. Consequently, we get a “Signs and Wonders Movement”. This is because a misplaced love of the spectacular has taken hold of so many professing Christian minds. The love of sensations has taken over their minds to such an extent that if anything spectacular or sensational doesn’t happen, then there is no spirituality, no presence of the Spirit, as far as they are concerned. What has happened here is that very subtly people have begun to walk by sight rather than by faith. Faith is not dependent on visible happenings, for faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). That is why our focus should be on the things above.

Another result of that failure to focus on what is above has been the assertion of material gain and good health as evidence of inward spirituality. Even the name, “Prosperity Theology”, should be a huge red flag! This has been very widespread. All God wants to do is bless you, and therefore (so they say) if you don’t have wealth and if you don’t have full health, then there must be something wrong with your faith. That is their mindset. That is a terrible perversion to come into the Christian scene and it just makes a mockery of all the great souls who have suffered and been desolate — having been strangers and pilgrims on this earth — throughout history. This perversion has come about because the church has lost its true focus. It began to focus on things of the earth rather than on things above. What became important was not whether we had found inner peace and spirituality but whether or not God gave us money for the latest SUV!

That is what it is like today, in so many places. And Paul refers to this when he says: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly…”. He is speaking about this mindset that becomes obsessed with earthly things rather than seeing through to the heart of spiritual things. “…whose glory is their shame, who set their mind on earthly things” (Philippians 3:18).

People have lost their true focus and set their minds — sought all their fulfilment — on the things of this earth rather than on the things above. [This does not mean that there is no value in any earthly things, or that we should have no concern about earthly things, for that would be pietism at best, or mysticism at worst. Besides, God has given us “richly all things to enjoy”, 1 Timothy 6:17. I am simply speaking about those who seek their fulfilment in earthly things, who put their “trust in uncertain riches” instead of the living God.].

So the refusal to focus on what is above in order to find spiritual fulfilment explains the obsession with sensationalism and spectacular occurrences which has become a feature of modern church life. This is also what has led to the assertion of material gain and full physical health as being signs of true spirituality. But there is also another aspect to this, in the manner in which so many churches get totally lost in administration, outward form and government and fail to take hold of the true spirituality that is necessary for the proper growth and development of individual believers. They become so lost in the outward form, the government of it, the organisation, the extravagant clothing — the earthly aspects, tradition — that true spirituality slips out of view.

In many churches there are so many different social clubs, meetings and studies, day in, night out, that it is no wonder that people have no time or space to grow spiritually. Attendance at all these meetings becomes the focus of their lives and the touchstone of how mature and spiritual they are and they are judged according to their attendance. But it is a false touchstone.

Well, that is the first failure. Unfortunately, I cannot go into these things as fully as I would like — for each point deserves an article or talk all of its own. But I just throw them out for your consideration.

The second failure regarding the Christian mind which has led to it going “out to lunch” is that

2)  It Got Bewitched

Paul uses this word, “bewitched”, in relation to the Galatians (Galatians 3:1). The Galatians got things totally upside down and they started to be seduced by Jewish legalism and ignored the reality of their freedom in Christ and how one is justified by faith alone and no longer has any necessity to be circumcised, keep the Jewish law, do all the Jewish festivals and rituals, etc. So Paul takes them to task about it. Incidentally he is addressing believers here. He is not talking here to unbelievers; he is talking to the church at Galatia — to those who have “received the Spirit” (Galatians 3:2-3). In effect, he is saying: “I treat you as believers, but you have been foolish enough to be bewitched!” They are believers, but they have been bewitched. And this bewitchment has happened today to a great many believers in many different ways also.

The Greek word that is translated as “bewitched” is baskaino. The English word “fascination” is derived from this. People become fascinated, entranced by things. And Paul depicts falling for false teaching here as a kind of entrancement of the mind, so that it becomes suspended from its normal rational judgements — bewitched. This has happened to a great degree in the Christian scene. People’s minds have been dulled to such an extent that they become bewitched and entranced by any new religious fad (cf. Acts 17:21), and nothing you can do will shake them out of it. They’ve been bewitched by it.

To see the way that falsehood has bewitched so many in a lemming-like fashion reminds me of the way a cobra moves its head from side to side in front of its victim to hypnotize it just before it strikes. It’s as if something has taken over their minds. They have been bewitched by fashionable fad after fashionable fad — whether it is being Slain in the Spirit, Prosperity Teaching, the Jabez Prayer, Promise Keepers, etc. Even the Jewish legalism which Paul was combating in his letter to the Galatians, and which Hebrews completely debunks, has made a massive resurgence in the Christian scene in the past decade. People celebrating Jewish festivals as if their lives depended on it. People buying Shofars. People ignorantly viewing modern Israel as if it is a revival of the Israel of the Bible. People treating the Jews as if they do not need to repent as they are already ‘God’s chosen people’, and much more. These are complete red herrings. People fail to think things through properly and instead become captivated and obsessed by the most foolish and unbecoming activities and teachings. Sometimes it seems that the more foolish a fad is, the more easily Christians will become bewitched by it!

Again, I could say so much more on this. But we will press on.

Another problem in the Christian mind which has led to it going “out to lunch” is that

3)  It has Failed to Exercise the Right Kind of Discernment

The Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees and Sadducees: “Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3). Now the context here is that they had asked the Lord to give them a sign from heaven. His response was that they needed no such sign because it was all around them in the form of His unique ministry. They had failed to discern what was happening right before their very eyes. And is this not a widespread problem in the Christian scene today? How much proof do people need that the world is falling apart at the seams and that the visible church is virtually apostate? Yet to make such a claim is likely to bring on you charges of “extremism” or “conspiracy theorist” or “pessimillennialist”! But this is the reality. A fog seems to have descended over people’s minds. The Christian mind today, in the main, seems unable to exercise the right kind of discernment. It seems to fall for any propaganda put out either by the ‘Christian’ media or by heavyweight spin doctors in the Christian scene. There is actually a wilful refusal to exercise discernment.

Yet Paul prayed for the believers at Ephesus, saying “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18). He was speaking there to believers (“the saints… and faithful”, Ephesians 1:1). He prayed that the eyes of their hearts would be opened up to the truth. Even believers need further light. This is because of the very real possibility that we can become dull and bewitched and foolish and entranced. Deep discernment doesn’t come automatically. Many people think it does. “I only have to be a believer and I will understand everything. The Lord will see to that”. So they think. But discernment must be worked for, studied for, and prayed for. This is one of the principal failures in the Christian scene. People have not worked for, studied for, or prayed for, discernment of mind.

The failure to discern the signs of the times is utterly phenomenal in the Christian scene today. How else can one account for the fact that a vast number of “Christians” are expecting a global revival, when the reality is that a world-wide downgrade in true spirituality is taking place continuously — not to mention the revealing prophetic material of the Bible about widespread apostasy and the eventual revealing of the Antichrist? How else can we account for the fact that so many Christians say, “My country, right or wrong”, when that country is behaving in a destructive and murderous fashion? How else can we account for the fact that the vast majority of Christians will fall en masse for any fashion and fad, no matter from which phony religious source it is derived? How else can we account for the fact that the vast majority of Christians will simply not check things out for themselves but will instead bury their heads ostrich-like in the sand and believe anything they hear?

The Christian mind has gone “out to lunch” because it failed to exercise the right kind of discernment. There is so much more that I could say about this.

Another problem regarding the Christian mind which has led to it going “out to lunch” is that

4)  It Failed to Walk in Humility

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…”.

Philippians 2:3-5

Do you know those lovely words? Paul is speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ’s mind, His attitude, His becoming a servant. This servanthood of the Lord Jesus coming in the flesh and going to the cross to suffer the pangs of hell for His people was a beautiful turn-around of everything that Satan had done. Satan was originally created to be a servant (as were all the angels, Hebrews 1:14). But instead he set himself up as a little God. Satan the servant makes himself into God. So along comes the Lord Jesus Christ who is God, but who makes Himself into a Servant. This is a perfect inversion of what Satan had done. What a beautiful move that is! And it is all described here in Philippians 2:3-5 in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul then applies that servanthood to all those who are disciples or followers of the Lord Jesus: “…but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others”. And which churches could that be applied in? So many churches of today are hotbeds of competitiveness! So many are competing for the pastor’s attention, wanting to appear to be the best and most spiritual Christian, to pray the most godly prayer complete with pious voice, to appear to be the most diligent student of the Bible, and so on. What a circus show it all is! Isn’t this the reality of so much of church-life in so many churches today? “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit”. How easily we can deceive ourselves that we are engaged in true piety but merely be going through the motions, behind which lies the reality of selfish ambition and conceit? Do you think that I am exaggerating? Do not look at churches with rose-tinted spectacles.

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”. You would think that this was something that would happen automatically with believers — that we would all somehow have a mind like the mind of Christ. But that is a very naïve idea. To some extent it does begin to happen, but not to the fullest extent that it could do. The rest has to be worked for, and worked at. From Paul’s words, one can see that things can ebb to such an extent that one needs a warning, one needs an admonition to be restored to the kind of mindset that befits a Christian. If this was not the case, then Paul would not be saying so.

In actual fact, in the Philippian church it is obvious that some people were at loggerheads with each other and were indeed doing things out of selfish ambition. He even specifically names two culprits (cf. Philippians 1:27 & 4:2). It so often happens in churches that there are people pulling and pushing in one selfish direction or another and they fail to consider the outcome of their actions in relation to the good of all or even to the development of their own maturity. The Christian mind today is so often engaged in puffed-upness and competitiveness instead of recognizing the vital necessity of servanthood.

Related to this, another problem regarding the Christian mind which has led to it going “out to lunch”, is that

5)  It Failed to Mature

I guess this is really the essence of what we are speaking about here. There has been a failure in the process of maturity. In relation to the servanthood about which we spoke in the previous section (“let this mind be in you…”), Paul shows that the kind of Christian mind which we should have is actually a sign of maturity. Later in the same letter, Paul speaks of the necessity to be “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead”. And he adds: “Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind” (Philippians 3:15). That is the mind we should have if we are going to be mature — a mind which doesn’t get stuck in the past or in tradition (“forgetting those things which are behind”) but which moves on (“reaching forward to those things which are ahead”). But we don’t just become mature overnight with one big mystical injection of spirituality. To imagine that — as many seem to have done — is a great failing which has led to the shipwreck of the Christian mind which, as a result, simply failed to mature.

If you look at that passage in Ephesians 4:11-15, where Paul speaks about apostles and prophets and evangelists and then pastors and teachers, those are all teaching offices. They all involve teaching and authority. And he says that the reason for the introduction of those teaching offices was

“for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; SO that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ”.

Ephesians 4:11-15

In other words, Paul is saying here; “Look, you need teaching, because it helps you mature, and then cunning, crafty, deceiving people cannot exercise any power over you. They can’t manipulate you at all. You’ve been given these teaching offices as gifts throughout the whole history of the church. First, you were given Apostles and Prophets as the foundation at the beginning of the building of the church (Ephesians 2:20), then you have been given Evangelists and Pastor-Teachers to build on their authoritative work”. And Paul shows that where those offices are honoured, there will be maturity, discernment and love abounding; whereas where teaching is neglected in the church, it leads to immaturity, lack of discernment, deceitful plotting, false teaching according to the whims, fads and fashions of the day, and a lack of love. I think those descriptions are pretty accurate of so much that takes place in the church today.

There now needs to be an awareness that something is very wrong. The means to deal with the bad stuff is truly available to the discerning diligent Christian, yet when I look around the Christian scene today, I see a mass of people who, in the main, do virtually nothing in terms of self-improvement. Do you see what I’m saying here? We should be the very first people to work on ourselves. We have to do some work on ourselves, in the power of the Holy Spirit, but we don’t. We need to be self-aware of our failings and shortcomings, the inner mess-ups which trigger us into foolish words and misguided courses of action. Yet we fail miserably to do all that.

Why? Why is it that in the main many Christian people do virtually nothing towards self-improvement? They don’t stop and say “Look, I’m a really competitive, nasty person, or I’m a deceitful plotter, or I’m lying about others, or I’m really uptight and insensitive, or I’m essentially uncaring, but I’m a saved person now, so I shouldn’t be behaving like this anymore. I need to do some work on myself and sort myself out. I’m going to go to the Lord and find out why all of this is happening”. But we don’t say that do we? We just carry on kicking people around, behaving in a nasty way, saying hurtful things to other people, lying about them, and nothing much changes. Whereas we, above all other people, should be working on ourselves in the power of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, and sorting it all out.

Why is it, historically, that Christians don’t do that these days? Why is it that Christians, in the main, make no attempt to mature and don’t even seem to recognise their immaturity? There are a few reasons I would like to offer to you here. The first reason for the Christian failure to mature is

i. A Suspicion of Works

The mindset goes like this: “Well I’m saved by grace alone, I don’t believe in works, otherwise it shows a lack of trust in the Lord”. Well that’s something of a lampoon, but it is virtually what is being said. There is a suspicion of “doing works”, as if doing something consciously undertaken towards self-improvement is somehow an unacceptable work that is not fitting for the Christian. However, this stems from a failure to differentiate between works in terms of aiding salvation and works in terms of aiding sanctification. J.C. Ryle put it like this: “One is certainly not justified by works, but the justified person works”. James highlighted this Christian failure in the second chapter of his letter: “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?… faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14,17). Yet, many professing Christians — especially those who cultivate over-intellectualism or who become overly obsessed with arcane theological literature — shun “works” in case they may appear to be a “do-gooder” or a “social gospeller”, perish the thought!

So, a suspicion of “works” is the first reason for the failure of the Christian mind to mature. But self-improvement is a good work and is simply a continuation of what was started when we first came to Christ. “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). Progressive sanctification is merely a continuation of what was initiated in you from the beginning of your life in Christ.

The second reason for the Christian failure to mature and why so many Christians do virtually nothing in terms of self-improvement is because of

 ii. A Failure to Recognize the True Nature of the Spiritual Battle

I refer here to the powers of darkness, who cannot destroy one’s faith, but who can most certainly wreck one’s walk. Paul speaks plainly about how we are doing battle with the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:10ff).

While it is true that many Christians today have become unhealthily obsessed with things demonic, there is another extreme whereby many Christians do not take the nature of the spiritual battle seriously. It is a battle on two levels — global and individual. There is the battle for the mind collectively, globally, as the world moves towards its dark climax and ultimate conflagration, and also a battle for the mind individually. Not only do so many Christians fail to recognise the nature of the spiritual battle globally (and will thus be deeply shattered when they finally see the scope of it) but they also fail to recognise the nature of the spiritual battle on an individual level.

The fact is that the demonic realm can play havoc in our lives and mess us up, if we let them do so, or if we give them the opportunity to do so, but that is in our own hands (Ephesians 4:27). I do not believe in the demonic possession of believers, as I have written elsewhere, but they can certainly harass us and cause hassle in our lives, unless we are willing to do some work on ourselves by mortifying our sin, crucifying the flesh.

Actually the basis of that work is quite simple. What does James say? “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). That is a work. And it is not that difficult to perform, given the extraordinary resources we have at our disposal. But how many Christians actually take it on board and do it? Simple resistance. There is an acute failure to recognise that the true nature of the spiritual battle involves even working on oneself over and against whatever lines of weakness there are in our lives. That is spiritual warfare too. Without that work, a mind cannot mature as it is so easily waylaid by the powers of darkness.

Another reason that so many Christians do virtually nothing towards self-improvement of their mind, of the way their mind works and their attitude, is because of

iii. An Infantile Dependence on Leaders who Lack Substance

There is an almost cultish aspect in so many churches today which breeds a slavish and infantile dependence on leaders with very little substance to them — paper men masquerading as men of authority and knowledge. Do you know what I mean by this? It does not only involve the obviously “heavy-shepherding” churches, but also many other churches in which this phenomenon is far more subtle. A vast number of church leaders are on a power-trip and are guilty of serious spiritual and emotional abuse, although they have fooled themselves into thinking that they are doing the Lord’s work. They take over people’s minds and, as a result, those people become ‘infantilized’ and unable to think for themselves. This infantile mindset virtually says: “I don’t need to do any work, I just rely on what I’m told to think and soak up whatever comes from the pulpit”. Such a mind can never mature.

Another reason that many Christians in the main do virtually nothing towards self-improvement of their mind, is because of

iv. Fundamentalist Smugness

Do you know what I mean by that? Fundamentalist smugness. So many who call themselves “fundamentalist” take refuge in, and hide behind, a whole pile of clichés and manmade traditions. Does it shock you to hear me say this? These churches may be very orthodox in terms of “doctrine” but there is something distinctly lacking in another very important department. They remind me of the church at Ephesus with which the Lord took issue in the book of Revelation (Revelation 2:1-7). They were really orthodox — brilliant at spotting false apostles and despising false teaching — but when it came to the aspect of love, they were hopelessly lacking.

When we inhabit churches such as these we can develop a false view of our maturity because we mistakenly equate our maturity with our knowledge of theology and the Bible and our stand on a certain “confession of faith”, or our superlative use of religious clichés, or the sober way that we move and dress, or even the cultivated pious inflection of our voice, which can give us the illusion of spirituality. In such churches, we develop an almost cultish way of being which lulls us into a false sense of security. Under such circumstances, we may think we are actually going places spiritually, but we are not; we have merely taken on a certain garment, a mantle of learned behaviour which appears to infuse us with grace. Fundamentalist smugness is a hideous restrictor of Christian maturity.

Another reason that many Christians in the main do virtually nothing towards self-improvement of their mind, is because

v. We do not Take Biblical Admonitions Seriously

Folks have just assumed that one only has to be saved and the rest will all follow naturally. Peter says: “Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance…” (1 Peter 1:13-14). What is he talking about? “As if I’d ever do such a thing!”, as you may say. Well why is he saying it if you wouldn’t ever do such a thing? The truth is that we may do such a thing, and he does have to issue this warning. Do you see what is happening? It can happen to all of us to a greater or lesser degree. It is another example of the illusion that simply becoming a Christian automatically results in a removal of our sinful behaviour. It doesn’t! We have to work at the remnants of our old selves. It is a mindset problem. And here we come back to what Paul said about having to be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2). It is an ongoing process. And if we ignore that, if we fail to implement it, we do so at our peril.

Personal transformation is something that has to be worked at. That is why Paul warns us, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). He is not speaking here about saving ourselves. He is speaking about the outworking of our salvation experience. We are told to “work it out”, to continue the good work which was begun in us when we came to Christ in the first place. This is something we have to do. This is something we have to work at. There is work involved in becoming mature. This is not a totally autonomous work, as Paul shows by following up immediately in saying that “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil.2:13). You have to work towards maturity yourself, but there is this remarkable influence of the Spirit of God indwelling you, helping you on with these things. It is our failure to take these admonitions seriously which has led to so much immaturity in the Christian scene. The Christian mind had failed to mature.

Thus the fifth reason that the Christian mind went “out to lunch” is that it failed to mature.

And finally, a sixth reason for the Christian mind going “out to lunch” is that

6)  It Failed to Interact Correctly with the Minds of the World

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4

Now that is mind-warfare. And it is the failure of so many believers to implement that correctly which has led to the Christian mind going “out-to-lunch”. It is a blisteringly mighty directive. Our principal warfare is in the arena of the mind, “pulling down strongholds” and “casting down arguments”. That is all taking place in the arena of the mind. It is a great work of apologetics. But the failure of so many Christians to do that correctly has led to so much hassle.

So many churches and Christian organizations today just want to cuddle up to everything and anyone in a nice global harmony. It is uncomfortable to enact 2 Corinthians 10:3-4. Some are afraid that they will become unattractive to others. However, such warfare doesn’t involve the call to be belligerent and bad mannered. In fact, we are called to be winsome and attractive, as far as that is possible. Some people will never see beyond our warfare through to our winsomeness and attractiveness. Nevertheless, we have to cultivate this fine balance between appearing to be winsome and attractive — being compassionate and loving — and at the same time being powerful enough in the strength of God to be able to pull down strongholds and cast down arguments.

What is a “stronghold” here? What is being referred to? Well it is a castle in the air. It is anything that one relies upon which is insubstantial and will o’ the wisp. Although it says, “pulling down strongholds”, they aren’t really strongholds as such; they are pretended strongholds. It is our duty, as believers, to challenge those things in the world, to do battle with them in the world of ideas. That is what we are called to do. This involves the mind. The unique and powerful Christian mind.

And what about “casting down arguments”. Does that make us loud-mouthed, arrogant and argumentative — as many Christians today, judging from their behaviour, seem to believe? Well the word “arguments” is a translation of the Greek word logismos (derived from logos, meaning word). It is speaking here about verbal reasonings which are being put out into the world, which are completely opposed to the Christian corpus of truth, but which are of a completely imaginary nature. And it is our duty to do battle with those, to exercise our minds and sharpen them with the minds of the world. But so often we don’t. We take the easy, mindless route. Either we throw the occasional grenade out and then retire into our fundamentalist trenches. Or else we are so frightened of being at loggerheads with anyone that we walk around with a perpetual smile on our face. Or, even worse, we think we simply have to introduce unbelievers to the nutty goings on in our churches so as to win them over. Well you will not win them over to Christian truth in such a situation, but you will win them over to the madness which your church is propagating in the name of Christ and the Holy Spirit. How are we going to change that? How are we going to enact that? There has been a huge failure to discharge this warfare with the world at the right level — the level of the mind — and thus we have not exercised our minds. For the mind is the interface to the soul. This is what we have failed to understand: The power which lies behind the believer’s words of truth and faith.

The Christian mind went out to lunch because it failed to interact at the level of the mind in pulling down strongholds and casting down arguments.

CONCLUSION

Well, my time is up! So how can I conclude? I have only one thing left to say. It is my belief that the Christian mind has fallen as a direct result of disobedience and as a direct result of a failure to implement the things to which it has clearly been called in Scripture. There is no excuse for it. This is something which could have been completely different had people chosen to take on board the admonitions and warnings and realised that we need to improve and mature individually above all other people in the world, rather than lauding subjective experience over objective truth.

We are the ones who should be leading the way as the salt of the earth and lights of the world. But, instead, we have allowed the world to set the pace, allowed the world to dictate to us how we should behave, allowed the world to make the agenda for our pathway through it. Such foolishness is unforgivable.

Whatever happened to the Christian mind? It failed to follow in the footsteps of Christ and it therefore became stuck in mud and fog — the mud of religion and the fog of mysticism. It is up to us to change all that from this day forth. Spiritual maturity or religious puerility. Our choice.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]