Pastor Yon's Blog

Characteristics of A Christ-Like Mind

3 Mins read

Characteristics of A Christ-Like Mind – Part I

Philippians 2nd Chapter

Key Text: 1 If you have any encouragement from being united with
Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness
and compassion,

Study Text: 1 If you have any encouragement from being united with
Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness
and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having
the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of
selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4
Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of
others. 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being
made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he
humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!

A few years ago, I had the displeasure of sitting in a church meeting where God’s
people were not on one accord. A problem arose which should have been dealt with easily,
but the issue at hand was superceded by personal agendas. Instead of being resolved in 15
minutes, the meeting lasted at least twice as long and the problem still was not resolved.
I won’t go into detail, but the bottom line is this, "The Christ-Like minds were
not attempting to be Christ-Like." Again, everyone had his/her own solution, and many
gave little regard to the other person’s thoughts, feelings or ideas. So what would
have made the meeting a more productive one?

(1) Encouragement not Discouragement

Our key text makes mention of encouragement through our unity in Christ. We should all
remember that we are on the same team and our goal is to complete the mission so that
Christ gets the praise and not we ourselves. Too often the discouragement of others occurs
because we only want to encourage ourselves, but it’s not your show — It’s the
Jesus Christ show. Remember, you aren’t the star; you’re the supporting cast.

(2) Comfort not Confrontation

Our text also makes mention of the comfort of the love of Christ. Now the reason His
love is the status quo and not "man’s love" is because man’s love is
like that "Young and the Restless" love; sometimes you don’t know
who’s loving who, who’s mad at who, or who’s in cahoots with who. In
situations like this, confrontation is inevitable. Therefore, as we go to take care of the
business of Christ, we need to go with His agenda on our minds and not our agendas.

(3) Fellowship– Don’t Jump Ship or Rock The Ship

Now tell the truth. Some of us have gone to the meeting ready to "start a fight in
an empty room." However, most of the time we’ve planned for someone to show up
so that we could to tell him/her off, make sure that everything was done our way, or
simply quit and give everybody a piece of our minds in the process. Instead of taking this
attitude, we should have asked ourselves during this tizzy– "Is Jesus in this agenda
(ship)?" One really good example of what happens when Jesus isn’t onboard occurs
in John 6:16-21 when the disciples departed for Capernaum and left Jesus behind. During
that time, they rowed for three to three and a half miles in strong winds and rough water.
However, Jesus caught up to them by walking on the water. Now if a man "walks you
down," not "runs you down," but "walks you down" while you are in
a vehicle of any type, you must be traveling really slow. But we see a significant
difference in their speed when Jesus got on board. The 21st verse states, "they were
willing to let him into the boat and immediately they reached the shore where they
were heading."

Our Christ-like minds were not only created to PRODUCE fruit, but also to REDUCE
hatred, strife, envy and waste. We all need to keep the mind of Christ so that we can
reach our destinations without delay. Just like the disciples, our trip can and will be a
whole lot rougher and slower if we don’t include Christ. The same also holds true for
the meeting I attended. If we would have been on one accord and had our Christ-like minds
working in the right mode, we could have had 15 productive minutes rather than 45-50
unfruitful ones.

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