Thinking Spiritually
…And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:22–24
Lord, I must distinguish between common sense, which is carnal knowledge, fleshly knowledge, which relies on my five senses or spiritual sense. That knowledge and understanding wisdom is given by the Holy Spirit. The natural man who lives by his five senses always doing the convenient thing. But I must live by the spiritual sense, which means doing that which is according to the word of God.
When I first became a Christian, I found a lot of variances between doing the convenient thing and the holy thing. I found myself stretching the truth, telling social lies not to hurt anyone’s feelings and doing other things that made common sense, but the Spirit within me was grieved. Gradually, I came to see that the Holy Spirit was not interested in saving my skin or making me attractive to others; He is always interested in making us attractive to Father God.
That meant my old mindset had to go. My carnality relying on my five senses will always contradict the Word of God. The scheming and looking for an advantage, had to give away to thinking spiritually, that is thinking like God thinks, which He desires, and demands. That meant a crisis of will, for God does not make us mature men and women against our wills. with God, our death took place with Jesus on the Cross of Calvary and our new life of resurrection begins in the power of the Holy Spirit. His thoughts become paramount and, to a certain extent automatic. His life became the natural life, the spirit led life. The life led by the Spirit of God is my new common sense.
The mature Christian will not have to ask. What shall I do or what shall I say? He responds as God would want him to do. Answers to all our questions are found in scripture as we study it. Our lives now need to be Spirit led decisions, all others are simply the result of following relationship with Him, who makes the best sense of all eternal sense. To be like-minded with Jesus we must be in His Word. Then I will have His mind in me is right behavior will follow. Phil. 2:5.