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I’ve been intrigued with the Biblical use of the word ‘authority’. As I dug deeper into its meaning, I found that, in general, authority fundamentally is a blend of power derived from a mix of traditions, personal influence due to personality, etc. and legal structures. Positional authority is perhaps the most commonly referred to. While different vocabulary is used, charismatic-based authority, though not verbalized as authority, yet wields a dominate influence in our day-to-day life. Traditional authority seems to have been losing its influence, especially in our more recent emphasis on the woke mindset. Unfortunately, its political intention is to destroy the lives of both genders, all races and, if possible, those of every age in order to brainwash people’s minds so that a new age of controlling others can emerge.

Though its use in the Bible varies, it usually means the ability to speak or act. This comes from having been entrusted with that power or authority. When the Bible uses the word authority to describe what people sensed when Jesus taught, it takes on a unique meaning.

When Jesus was only 12 years old, Luke 2:46-49 reports how He somehow became separated from his parents in the crowds during the Jewish feast of Passover. When they realized he wasn’t with the group who was returning home, they returned to Jerusalem only to find him in the temple. There He was, shocking the well-learned Jewish doctors and leaders with His amazing understanding and questions. More often than not, a reader bypasses Jesus’ full humanity and interprets His questions and answers came out of His deity. But is that a correct interpretation? We must remember John later twice refers to Him clearly saying, “… I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. John 5:19 (NLT2) and “I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.” John 5:30 (NLT2) He is explicit that the knowledge He was stunning others with was not of Himself, so His knowledge must have been flowing out of the Spirit of God dwelling within Him.

Is it possible the Holy Spirit empowers someone to speak, while others feel the Spirit but wrongly credit the speaker? Could it be what the crowds called authority, in contrast with the Jewish teachers, in reality was simply that His words were anointed by the Holy Spirit. Paul seems to allude to this happening when he had spoken to the Corinthians. He described in 1 Cor 2:1-5 that he was not with enticing words and man’s wisdom but was of the Holy Spirit.

If true, we don’t have to be scholars or great with words to share life-changing truths. I’ve pondered if that is what Paul was saying when he wrote that we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:15-16) I know from personal experience that both when speaking publicly and when counseling, I’ve been surprised at words of wisdom that have come out of my mouth that I had never thought of before that moment. I suspect there is a type of authority each of us can have that has not come out of our position, charisma or tradition. It is an authority that comes when God’s Spirit uses our mouths to speak His words. However, that does not mean we can blame the Spirit of God for inspiring us to speak unkind words or abuse others. Yes, the Bible says God can use a donkey, so we can’t use Him using us to imply we are spiritual. We must be careful to allow what we may say reflects the character of God—the fruit of His Spirit.

Dallas Willard describes three insightful types of faith in God. He called the first Faith of Propriety (religious correctness, respectability, or ritualism). We might think of how Job’s initial faith was described by offering sacrifices for his children in case they sinned. Or that of Nicodemus, who, although a Pharisee, was attracted to Jesus while maintaining his rituals. Willard described the second level as Desperation (chaotic, unstable, confusion). Job maintained his own righteousness when his friends challenged him. (Job 32:1) He maintained it even when God confronted him. When God paused His questioning in Job 40:3-5, although befuddled, Job only acknowledged his lack of knowledge, not his spiritual depravity.

Willard calls the last level the Faith of Sufficiency (deep conviction, perhaps the faith of Christ (cf. Galatians 2:16, KJV), Philippians 3:9, KJV). Completely humbled by God’s questions, Job then confesses, “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.  I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” Job 42:5-6 (NLT2) God’s questioning had brought him to a new level of trust in Him.

Likewise, every growing believer will pass through three levels of relationship with Jesus Christ, each in response to a unique invitation. The first is Jesus’ invitation to “Come to Me” (Mt 11:28). This is where we find rest and relief from our sins. The second is “Follow Me” (Mt 4:19), an invitation to a closer relationship of a leader/master and servant. The third is “Abide in Me” (Jn 15:4), which depicts a conscious awareness of His presence on a regular basis. This is the deepest relationship any human can have with Jesus, that of victorious Christian living. Brother Lawrence best relates this abiding in his book, The Practice of the Presence of God. Both Jesus and Dallas’ descriptions point to the coveted relationship level with God.

But how can this pinnacle be reached? Separate from living in harmony under God’s heart, our nature-imposed objectives go awry. The social and individual chaos of human desires sees to it. I’ve found that Solomon’s words offer the most effective way to live in harmony with His heart. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV) To be transparent, I honestly thought I was trusting Him more than my own understanding—and I’m sure I intermittently did so. Without Connie and through several very painful experiences, the Holy Spirit has been showing me I default to trusting in myself, and I cannot afford to continue this pattern. I must seek the actualization of depending entirely upon the “mind of Christ”. (1 Cor. 2:16) The Psalmist describes this when he wrote, “Whoever goes to the LORD for safety, whoever remains under the protection of the Almighty, can say to him, ‘You are my defender and protector. You are my God; in you I trust.’” Psalm 91:1-2 (TEV)

Jesus’ call to abide in Him is not living like a monk or attending perpetual Bible study groups. Rather, it’s simply persistently endeavoring to integrate into one’s daily lifestyle, Jesus’s teaching of the kingdom of God. Of course, you can’t integrate them all at one time. But, it could be accomplished by teaming up with several friends to examine Jesus’ words about the kingdom and how each concept could be creatively integrated into your lifestyles. Doing this as a team could be an enjoyable way to grow into the full stature of Jesus Christ. (Eph. 4:13) Speaking from experience, the more I practice this, the more content and grateful I am.

Jesus’ words, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20 (NIV) is hard to grasp. The Pharisees and teachers of the law appeared righteous to some today. Some people’s thinking may be due to how we define righteousness today, with a focus on actions. How could someone be more righteous than the scrupulous Pharisees? What if we were to change the meaning of righteousness? What’s the potential impact of that?

The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders flaunted their giving, praying, and fasting to appear righteous. Suppose we redefine spiritual disciplines; like fasting, Bible reading, praying, giving, and other such deeds — not be acts of righteousness, but to be acts of wisdom. Would that alter the definition of genuine righteousness? Jesus condemned them for their obsession with those actions. Those practices, in the end, are only wise actions that lead to righteousness. Think about it, is it righteous not to strike someone back or is it a wise response to an abuser? Jesus wasn’t righteous because He prayed to His Father. Prayer was only the tool He used to talk to His Father, which led to His humanity being righteous. Dieting doesn’t automatically make a person lose weight, but it is a wise strategy for losing weight. So then, what is a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees?

Interestingly, God, who told the Hebrews how to worship (offer sacrifices, lift up hands when they pray, attend Holy Feasts, and the like), yet later had Isaiah tell them to stop doing all those things because it made him ’sick’. The church of Ephesus had learned from Paul, John and others who pastored them, how to do all the things they were commended for doing in Revelations 2. Yet Christ told the believers that they had left their first love of Him and if they didn’t make a 180-degree change in direction, He would remove their candlestick, which represented His presence among them. How can it be that in both cases, they were doing all that some might think to be the ‘righteous’ things, and they still would have been classified as not meeting His minimal requirements? What makes an action ‘righteous’ is the motivation of the heart.

If we look at the whole of scripture, we find God is not as concerned about what we do as He is in why we do those things. It is the motives of the heart that changes everything. Motives in the heart turn good deeds, including fasting, into righteousness. That means we can have good people in the church who have been faithful for many decades, yet have exchanged their intense passion to grow into the likeness of Jesus, for their cherished tradition, head knowledge, right doctrine, giving, raising their hands in worship, and sitting in the same seat at church, i.e., their rituals. Their attitudes towards others, including other believers in the church, reflect those of the Pharisees more than a reflection of Jesus.

Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3 (ESV) Little children depend more on what they sense inside, their intuition, than they do on their logic. As adults, if we can’t get our minds around a Bible principle, we don’t practice it. Does our tendency to lean on our own understanding inhibit us from accepting the Spirit’s whispers as we meditate on His Word?

When my wife died, she had no fear of going to Heaven. Yet she was wary of the mysterious process of dying. The unknown factor is sobering for all, save daredevils. Thinking or talking about death isn’t popular, particularly for those uncertain about the dying experience and the afterlife.

After sensing the Spirit of God was clearly leading me to become a pastor-at-large in a seminary in the Philippines, I was also wary of tomorrow’s unknowns. While I had no apprehension of where I will spend eternity, I was uneasy about how the life of a 79-year-old widower might look while serving at a seminary, serving 38 different nations with multiple cultures. I am not a cultural sociologist, so this is a glaring unknown to me.

It is in this context that I pondered the thoughts and emotions of Mary when the angel appeared to her and asked her about becoming pregnant and giving birth to a son of the ‘Most High’. No one knew how to prepare for that! As a teenager, in a culture where pregnancy out-of-wedlock was totally unacceptable, it could have been fatal for her. Bottom-line; she must have imagined social rejection. But she was ‘engaged’ to be married, so how would her fiancé respond to such a thing happening to her. She was both very courageous and totally devoted to God when, in-spite-of her misgivings, she said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” Luke 1:38 (NLT2) Stepping into the unknown at a seminar in the Philippines would be a ‘cakewalk’ compared to the complications of becoming pregnant and giving birth to none-other-than the Son of God.

Given my insecurities, I could fully understand that Mary had to focus on an inner conviction of who God is rather than on the formidable uncertainties. I have drawn strength from reflecting on Mary’s total commitment to allowing her body to become the mother of God’s Son.

While surrendering all of one’s rights to become shaped into the image of Jesus is less foreboding than following Mary’s example, or even mine, it has distinct similarities.

People each possess a kingdom in which they control their actions, whether they think of it that way or not. We often think of a baby not having a kingdom but, mind you, babies have temper-tantrums because whatever they wanted wasn’t coming to them as they wanted. The rights of a teenager are often normally well contested. Irrespective of age, for a person to become a true Christian or Christ-follower, that person must surrender their kingdom over to God’s kingdom. That surrender of rights begins at conversion, but it is a continuous process, called sanctification, until they breathe their last breath. The more a person surrenders, the greater intimacy, and therefore divine joy and peace, that person has with God. Although only an early teenager, Mary showed serious spiritual maturity when she consented to becoming the mother of Jesus. I’m ashamed that it took so long for me to consent just to go to the Philippines.

This begs the question, how far can you see that you have come in surrendering your kingdom, your rights to control your daily decisions, to God’s kingdom, the kingdom of God? How have you recently responded when He made His last request of you? Do you sense you need to get back into His presence and surrender your rights to the unknown in your future?

I recall antique cars from my childhood due to restoring them with my father. I drove them to school after I was granted my school driver’s permit. Cars nowadays are so much faster and convenient. This allows us to travel much faster to destinations over 100 miles away, enabling us to attend more events and connect with more people. I recall my mom’s wringer washing machine. When helping her wash clothes, she repeatedly warned me of the danger in getting my fingers caught in the wringer. It was much better and faster than the old washboard used for washing clothes. It allowed mom’s (mostly) more time to do Bible study, serve as a taxi for the pre-16-year-old kids, have a social life, and much more.

High technology and AI are both amazing and efficient. It is a better speller than I am, for sure. But in this instance, it’s also much more expensive, although not in the way you think. That has nothing to do with money.

It helps us be creative, complete tasks faster, and be progressive. AI is now being utilized by pastors to write their sermons, articles, and speeches. Will we see audio holograms used for sermons and podcasts in a few years? That would be a vast improvement for multi-campus use with large screens.

However, what impact does it subtly have on our ability to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice? Will our ability to connect with God decrease as we progress? Or on the sermons that are Spirit-directed and anointed? Could it be we will no longer need the Holy Spirit in all we do?

What effect have cell phones had on face-to-face interaction that we gain, need, and get social and emotion support from? Research tells us young people depend increasingly on social media tools while reporting more loneliness and depression among the same age groups. So, is technology always better than old-school methods?

I’m intrigued that theology professor Brad East’s college course makes students abstain from digital technology for a whole month. It’s one of the most popular classes at the college. Is it possible that new technologies have limitations? Is this mere nostalgia, or a signal that something is wrong?

It’s obvious that busyness is a huge barrier to a person’s spiritual development. Is our spiritual journey helped or hurt by the expansion of technology? Is a counter-formation necessary to re-prioritize our relationship with God? Could it possibly bring us to spend more time seeking God’s value system, ways, heart and life? Considering Jesus’ words, “Seek God’s kingdom first, and live a life that pleases him, and he will give you all you need.” These words of Jesus illuminate the difference between deeper spiritual needs and new innovations.

We easily become distracted by life’s opportunities that choke out what our inner-being needs most. I suspect this especially is experienced in our family relationships and spiritual lives.

Unbeknownst to me, there has been a part of me I’m ashamed of. I’ve had it perhaps all my life. I was confident I had totally surrendered myself to God. I had done everything I knew to carefully obey what God called me to do—things I most certainly did not want to do, like being a preacher or pastor. That was what I wrestled most with God about and reluctantly obeyed Him. As I look back now, I must have been like the boy who was told to stand in the corner for having done something wrong, and said, “I am standing in the corner, but I am sitting down on the inside.” I can’t say that was me for sure, but given how God has been persistently teaching me about not trusting myself, there must have been something amiss that God patiently put up with—until the last 4 to 5 years.

I’m reminded of the episode recorded in John 9:35-41 where Jesus encountered a blind man He had healed and then got thrown out of the synagogue for not answering the Jewish leaders the way they wanted him to. “When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man’?” The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.” John 9:35-36 (NLT2) I too wanted to totally surrender myself to God, but I too was blind—spiritually blind to my condition. God has His time for everything, and it came my time for God to address my unsurrendered self. I first surrendered my preference for Connie (my wife) to continue to be with me. Although I thought I had done that until she died. Some of the scales fell off my eyes then and kept falling off. Aging in itself is a Mt Everest to climb. Then I was scammed and had a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) when my mind literally went blank when I tried to talk to my grandson. The combination of those events opened my blind eyes so I could see I had continued to default to trusting in myself.

Sometimes God is unmistakably clear. Other times, He veils matters until His prescribed time. The good news is He never leaves us and, in the fullness of time, He touches the nerve connected to our next challenge. The longer we experience God, the time comes for us to be taken to a new level of relationship with Him. For me, this is following what He orchestrated in serving a trimester at APTS in the Philippines. Perhaps because I am going self-funded, they told me I could come and go whenever. But traveling back and forth to the Philippines is not a quick jaunt or an inexpensive trip. It is obvious I cannot trust myself on this adventure. I’m not even sure if I can get through the airports or manage customs and the like. The president and his wife will be my immediate travel guides, but if I return, I will be on my own—who I know can’t trust.

While I have known these things for years, recently I have been experientially learning at new levels that the Holy Spirit is my guide, my mind, my everything! That is liberating and eye-opening. I have already been challenged to lean on Him like I have never done before.

I’m sharing this because I believe God desires every believer to learn to lean on Him. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT2) I highly doubt He will ask you to go to the Philippines or any other country. But I do expect He will ask you to step out to do something you have never done or even dreamed of doing. Why? He wants all His children to love and trust him more than anything else in this life. I have a deep peace within, and He will give you the same. I am confident He will orchestrate the next steps. Will you trust Him that much? If not yet, I know from experience He will gently walk with you to do His will.

Do the words ‘Are we there yet’ sound familiar? I suspect every child goes through that stage, especially when they are in a car on a longer trip. I can still find myself being impatient at a stop sign, at a checkout stand, at a restaurant, or the like. I don’t know why that is, but I highly suspect everyone finds themselves impatient at some point.

When talking about God answering prayers, someone recently commented about their impatience when God doesn’t answer our prayers. Moses became impatient with God when he said, “Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people. And you have done nothing to rescue them!” Exodus 5:23 (NLT2) He thought God should have delivered His people from Egypt immediately, and since God did not respond that way, Moses impatiently exploded against God. While impatience is childish, adults also can display childish impatience. It reckons that God’s actions must be compressed into my time schedule and must be done in my way. Childishness is essentially trying to bring God down to earth and forcing Him to obey earthly laws instead of the laws of heaven.

Is our problem with time or with our need to control God? When impatience raises its childish head within us, it is a red light on our dashboard telling us something is misaligned within us. Nothing stops our pouting like a good look in the mirror. Jesus tells us to abide in Him (His presence) and not to think or act independently of Him. I dislike it when my impatience shows, and I must admit that my arrogant attitude challenges God’s integrity, wisdom, and most certainly His authority over me.

When I humble myself and recognize His presence in my life in that moment of time, I find it much easier to say I’m sorry for acting like a child. I want to be proactive as His child and regularly communicate with Him and so delight in His presence. How do I know that? I went through that very process while sitting in a hospital room, all dressed and ready for a doctor to come to dismiss me. When I was able to get realigned with Him, I felt so much better and enjoyed His presence in the room. James tells me, “But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” James 1:25 (NLT2)

That is why I must use my Bible constantly, not only for what it tells me about God, but for what it tells me about myself! The Bible, like my mirror, is my truest friend. It tells me what I need to know to be proactive and move forward instead of looking in my rearview mirror at my failures. That is what spiritual maturity looks like.

Acknowledging my humanity does not mean I must grovel in my failure. Rather, it reminds me to get back up and take positive action to follow Jesus’ example. Skinned knees are not fun, but they can serve us well when we thank God we don’t have to deal with a broken leg.

I was not aware of who Charlie Kirk was until news of his being killed grabbed the media headlines. Perhaps what struck me the most was how authentic and invested he was in his faith in God. His target audience, the young people, often quickly identify a charlatan. Regardless of whether you liked him, there was no question about his authenticity. In fact, from what I understand, it was who he was and what he stood for that motivated his killer to shoot him.

It led me to ask myself, am I believable? Or am I only another so-called Christian? I find it striking that neither John the Baptist nor Jesus tried to use any form of promotion to get people to come to them. In fact, Jesus even told some of those He healed NOT to tell anyone, albeit it would be hard to hide a healing of a former blind or otherwise handicapped person.

Jesus’ strategy for letting the world know they were believers was for them not to say much of anything. Jesus stated His primary indicator when He said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35 (ESV). He revealed His strategy, saying, “… I will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I love the Father… “John 14:31 (NLT2). His obedience to the Father authenticated Him.

Lord, as a disciple of Yours, I must not only believe but be believable. There is no use in telling others of God’s grace unless that grace has been operating in me. Even businesspeople know this concept is true. That is why they tell their employees, “My reputation is in your hands.”

Ezekiel pointed out in 36:27 that when regeneration occurs in a human, that person will naturally desire to be careful to follow God’s decrees and laws. The apostle Paul later said, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” Philippians 2:13 (NLT2) Dallas Willard said when a person is genuinely living in God’s kingdom while still on this earth, His presence is actively working in their life. That person lives interactively with God and is caught up in what He is doing. It was this kind of living that far exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. (Matthew 5:20) I assume that to mean that God’s presence in our lives is not so much focused on what we do as it is why we do it. If my heart is that sold on what I’m doing, others will see it.

The best salesperson is one who is totally sold on the product she/he is selling. They personally own and use it. They confidently put their product up against the product that has the greater share of sales. It is like that product is in their blood! As I look at my life, my greatest goal is to leave a legacy of someone who ‘bleeds’ loving God with all their heart—as Jesus loved His Father. It is that passion that crushes other attractions in my life. However, although that is my greatest passion, is that the fragrance that follows behind me? Obviously, I cannot see what others see in my life, so all I can do is to be genuinely authentic in what I do. My favorite verse is Paul’s words to the church leaders of Ephesus, “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus…” Acts 20:24 (NLT2) Your spiritual passion is probably something different. That is not the point. The point is what’s in your ‘blood’ that motivates you to be who you are. Does your scent reveal where you’ve been?

Occasionally, Connie would ask me to go to the storeroom to get a sauce or the like. Sometimes when I got there, I couldn’t find what she had requested. When I told her that, she would say, “I know it is down there,” so off we would go to look together. Sure enough, it was there. I had been looking straight at it but couldn’t see it. This is often like our relationship with God.

The early Hebrews saw God’s stunning miracles. Yet soon they returned to worshiping the local cultural gods. To this day, practicing Jews will do their ritual of worship of God, yet not see Him in the life of His Son, Jesus. But are we that much different? We can go to church, read our Bibles, serve others, and the like, yet rarely, if ever, encounter God in doing so.

We commonly think that if so and so could see a miracle, they would believe and trust in Jesus, but that is not so. Jesus’ brothers and sisters, who ate meals with Jesus, saw, touched and conversed with Him, yet only Mary, their mother, saw who Jesus really was. It is thought that many of his family members did not believe in him until after He died and rose again. John the Baptist, declared Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Yet, he became confused about who Jesus was and sent his disciples to inquire of Jesus if He was really the Son of God. The scribes and Pharisees heard Jesus teach and witnessed the miracles God did through Him yet could not see Him for who He really was.

Our preconceived ideas blind us to what is true. We often view spontaneous thoughts as harmless clouds drifting by. We ignore Paul’s warning, “…we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12 (NLT2) These evil spirits confuse us too often. Peter couldn’t distinguish the difference between the Holy Spirit’s and Satan’s ideas that popped into his mind. When something puts our mind in a spin, we aren’t able to see Satan or Jesus when looking at them.

I’ve been intrigued with how those physically close to Jesus didn’t realize who He was. It was like me looking in the storeroom and not seeing what was in front of me. The Jewish leaders, people in his hometown (Nazareth), the community of Gadarenes, and scores more; Mary at the tomb and the men walking and talking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Him.

We would like to imagine that if we saw what they saw, we would go all in for certain. However, we don’t realize the influence twisted ideas can have on our minds. Consider Judas Iscariot. Jesus empowered him to do mighty miracles with the other disciples and the seventy whom Jesus sent out to do the miraculous. He had to be blind not to see Jesus for who He was.

This makes me question how often I might miss God at work around me. Why is it that we find it difficult to credit God for small things that happen to us? I too can be obsessed with the physical. How about you? I can only say I am still on the learning curve of seeing God instead of myself in what happens around me. But the more I watch for Him working daily in my life, the greater healing and joy I experience. I’m sure that is how it would be with you as well. He is working when we don’t see or feel Him working. But when I look more for Him, I can see Him.

So many choruses are written and sung about Jesus. His name has become so familiar that people use His name in vain. I have wondered if Christians, ministers, Sunday School teachers, etc., don’t inadvertently use His name in vain. Jokingly, Christian speakers have stated that if they ask a rhetorical question, the universal answer most often is Jesus. Indeed, Jesus can do anything when He’s led by the Spirit. However, is it possible His name has become so familiar we lose respect for Him? For example, when we reference the name Jesus, are we referring to His deity or humanity because He was fully both God and man? Has His name become so common we no longer even think seriously about the difference.

What was Jesus really saying when He clearly stated, … “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. John 5:19 (ESV) and, ’I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.’” John 5:30 (ESV) Or, which Jesus was the subject when the Mark wrote, “immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, ‘Why do you question these things in your hearts’?” Mark 2:8 (ESV) Which Jesus was making those statements? … His humanity or deity?

The aging process is clearly a challenge. Someone has said the proverb, “Growing old is not for the faint of heart”. If you don’t understand that, you will if you wait long enough. Not only do you experience physical pain in places you didn’t know existed, but you also have senior moments. I become frustrated when I’m speaking and a word or name I’ve often used refuses to come to mind at that moment. When that happens, my mind goes to Paul’s words, “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16 (ESV) I find it noteworthy He doesn’t say the mind of Jesus, which would open the door to a reference to Jesus’ humanity. This verse has opened up a whole new way of thinking for me. Just how much of His mind is within each of us? How often do we default to our human mind rather than His mind in our daily life? It is interesting Jesus told His disciples, “But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time, you will be given what to say,” Matthew 10:19 (NIV) This at least suggests the “mind of Christ” can be a part of our daily life, especially in times of stress.

The more I have considered this concept, the more I admire the humanity of Jesus. It could be said that He had learned this principle before He even became a teenager. He was exercising “the mind of Christ” while sitting among the teachers, and all who heard Him were astonished. (Luke 2:46-47) Whatever was happening then, at an early age He obviously had learned what He had told the disciples to do when brought in front of governors and kings.

This also offers new meaning to me when I think of the words, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT2) I regret it has taken me decades to literally learn how to do what that verse tells each of us to do. It makes me admire Jesus for learning at an early age what has taken me decades to learn. Have you learned this practice yet? He is teaching me, but I am having to unlearn so much before I can practice leaning on His mind.