Thinking Different

What should characterize the thought patterns of a Christ follower?  How is a Christ follower’s thinking counter cultural?  Today’s devotional captures the battle in our minds today. We can easily slide into the doom and gloom syndrome of so many. But if God is at work in our lives, our sense of reality and our eternal perspective should be a loud yet positive voice today. The apostle Paul states:

 (1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:6-10‬ , Eugene Peterson’s MSG translation) “We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text: No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it— What God has arranged for those who love him. But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. Who ever knows what you’re thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he’s thinking, but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. We don’t have to rely on the world’s guesses and opinions. We didn’t learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we’re passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.”

If we are following the narrow way and have an eternal perspective, will we experience persecution, loneliness, or confusIon? We may have rough times by thinking Biblically, but His grace and presence are promised.

Randy Alcorn says, “A Barna poll shows that for every American who believes he or she is going to Hell, there are 120 who believe they’re going to Heaven. Yet Christ said otherwise: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).” - Excerpt, Heaven: Biblical Answers to Common Questions