Smorgasbord Tuesday: Access to the Thoughts of God

Last week we finished going through our 9 week journey through the Fruit of the Spirit. As you know, I really grew in understanding the role of the Holy Spirit in my life. The Holy Spirit has always been a bit of a mystery to me. You hear a lot about God and who He is as our Father, and you hear a lot about Jesus of course and His role in setting us free but the Holy Spirit I think remains a bit of a mystery and He doesn't get talked about a lot.

As I began finishing up the fruit of the Spirit series, I began running across a lot more verses that discussed the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 2:9-16

But as it is written in the Scriptures:
"No one has ever seen this,
and no one has ever heard about it.
No one has ever imagined
what God has prepared for those who love him." — Isaiah 64:4

¹⁰ But God has shown us these things through the Spirit.

The Spirit searches out all things, even the deep secrets of God.¹¹ Who knows the thoughts that another person has? Only a person's spirit that lives within him knows his thoughts. It is the same with God. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.¹² Now we did not receive the spirit of the world, but we received the Spirit that is from God so that we can know all that God has given us.¹³ And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom but with words taught us by the Spirit. And so we explain spiritual truths to spiritual people.¹⁴ A person who does not have the Spirit does not accept the truths that come from the Spirit of God. That person thinks they are foolish and cannot understand them, because they can only be judged to be true by the Spirit.¹⁵ The spiritual person is able to judge all things, but no one can judge him. The Scripture says:
¹⁶ "Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Who has been able to teach him?" — Isaiah 40:13
But we have the mind of Christ.

Now I really want you to take time to stop and reflect on what these verses say. Everyone knows the verse, "His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways" but they don't know what follows in 2 Corinthians. We have been given the Spirit of God, and what does the Spirit of God do, it searches the mind of God. Think about that really, it will blow you away! Your spirit is the thing inside of you that nobody else on earth sees or has access too. If you don't want somebody to know what you are thinking, they won't know. Yet God in His infinite wisdom and power has decided to give us access to His secret thoughts. We have the mind of Christ!

Daniel 2:21-23

He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to the discerning.
²² He reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what lies in darkness,

Amos 3:7

Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing
without revealing his plan
to his servants the prophets.

God desires to reveal His secret thoughts to us! Are you listening?

2 Corinthians 3:15-18

Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.
¹⁶But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
¹⁸And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

We have something that most people in the Old Testament did not have, access to the full understanding of the word of God! We are being transformed to become more like Christ through His Spirit working and operating in our lives! Take full advantage of what you have been given! You have been given God's Spirit and where His Spirit is there is freedom!

As you know I was very excited to have Brian White in town last week for the Freedom in Christ conference. While those messages are not available online at this time, he did speak at my church on Sunday. He talked about the thoughts of God and our thoughts and it goes right along with today's blog, so if you are interested in hearing more about the the thoughts of God the message is called: What Do You Think?

So why do I like Brian so much? I like him because he is not a pastor (not that I have anything against pastors:) rather he is a professor at a public college in Michigan. What I like is that he really gets what I've been talking about in this post. We all as believers have access to the heart and mind of God and it can and should effect our everyday life in a very powerful way! He is someone who believes this and walks it out as a "lay person" and I personally find it very inspiring for my personal life.

I have also run across someone on the blog sphere named Micey. She has an incredible testimony, called Once I was Lost, if you have an extended period of time sometime you will want to read her story. Anyway, she is someone who has her ears open to the Spirit and it is amazing how many opportunities she gets to minister the gospel to people. Check out her post on 7/22/09 for an example of what she does on at least a weekly if not daily basis.

My encouragement to you this week is to know who you are and what you have been given as a child of God! You have access to the secret thoughts of God on a daily basis. Start listening and you will be amazed at what He has to say to you.

In Christ,