Mindless Christianity Is where we do not engage the mind and think Rightly from God’s perspective in seeing the world, circumstances, life, from His View as revealed in His Word, which is Truth.- {John 17:17}

The Bereans poured over the Scriptures when they heard Paul speak, they did not take what he said at face value but sought out from the Word of God whether these things were true or not. “And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.”-{Acts 17:11 NLT}

Paul told the Philippians,” have this mind in you that was also in Christ…” -{Phil 2:5.} While some seek some mystical experience to seek to understand “the mind of Christ,” the chapter reveals it as having a life in submission to God that will be manifested in obedience and seeking out the welfare of others as Paul, Timothy {v19} and Epaphroditus, {v25}… Are examples of in the chapter!

How easy it is to be a “mindless Christian” going to service after service hearing message after message and not adopting or applying what is heard … Our bodies may be physically present but where is our mind?

Paul wrote of our need to have our mind renewed so we could prove what God’s will is.–(Read Rom 12:1-2) For the mind is the center for our attitudes, emotions and choices we make. Wrong information leads to wrong thinking and wrong choices! This is why Phil 4:8 teaches us to THINK Right, v 9 Teaches DO RIGHT! Note the order, Thinking first then Doing right as a result! So we have to have the right information, which is in His Word.

… And how does The Holy Spirit renew our thinking so as to influence our living? The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God,”sanctify them by The Word, Your Word is truth!”-{John 17:17}… And while we often pursue the riches of this world we are in spiritual poverty when it comes to evaluating life’s priorities, as often our mind is not being renewed, changing, to align up with seeing life from God’s priorities and yet Paul said ” let the Word of Christ dwell in you RICHLY.” -{Col 3:16}. We are not rich in His Word, and so the great void in our thinking, which is ultimately is to “love The Lord your God with all of your …MIND.” -{Matt 22:37}. 

The mind ultimately is to love God, but how can we know Him, think of Him right, if we do not engage our thinking and have it renewed by His Word … Which is truth! We end up like the children of Israel who created a golden calf and then said this is what God is like! They made with their hands a ‘god’ of their own imagination.Their THINKING was off! It has well been said “what we think about God is the most important thing about us.” For if our foundation is not right then we will not be right, because our thinking is not right. 

Imagine if NASA decided to send their next spaceship to MARS and if they were off by one degree in their calculations to arrive there. As the vessel blasted off and if it followed the  course of the faulty calculations, that one degree would take them further and further from their target into outer space, and  miss the target all together. Imagine if you or your child or a loved one was on that flight and beforehand you were told by a NASA official, that everything would be fine, they thought the numbers they crunched and their calculations were “pretty close.” You would not get on that craft or allow your loved ones either because of the mindless indifference, to your safety and care. The attitude that “near enough is good enough,” when it is not, when your life is depending upon those exact calculations! And yet we treat God in worse terms and those around us, and those who have no knowledge of Christ, by treating His Word with contempt, having a light attitude, despising it and ultimately Him whose Word it is! 

When we read that God says “Do not be conformed to the world,{grammatically it’s a command and says”stop doing this,” as they were already allowing themselves to be molded into the  ways of the world system and thinking.} But we are to “BE transformed by the renewing of your mind,”{Rom 12:2}, we take it as optional, so confident are we in our own faulty calculations, that we will be fine, that there is no danger to us, others or to His Name. Taking the LORD’S Name in vain, we often “miscalculate” as ONLY “swearing, using “foul language” but to take His Name in vain is to use His Name in any way that dishonors Him, that is not true about Him, and so we falsely believe based on our own “calculations” that we are not taking His Name in vein as long as we don’t swear, or use curse words! When He says that we are to love Him with all of our… mind.. . we falsely believe based on our own understanding and “calculations,” that we can come up with what this means ourselves, by-passing His Word as our only reliable means to truly and accurately “calculate!” 

We find it easier to believe we have “a word from the LORD,” when we have by-passed and don’t even know what He says in His Word. So serious was it in the Old Testament, that if someone said they had a word from the LORD and it was not, they put the person to death! Why? They misrepresented Him, they took His Name in vain, they dishonored Him! They attributed to Him something that was not true, and He is TRUTH! “But a prophet who presumes to speak in My Name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.” -{Deut 18:20}. WE CAN LEARN SO MUCH FROM THOSE BEREANS!

In Colossians 1:21 we read of what our mind was like before we repented toward God and placed our faith in Christ Jesus, “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds,” “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind,{THOUGHTS}“-{Eph 2:3} Hostile, lustful mind’s. Where do these evil THOUGHTS come from ? Jesus answers for us, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander…”-{Matt 15:19}. The heart of every problem is – the Heart! And where the heart is corrupt so too the thoughts that come from it and incapable of loving God with the mind, until the heart is changed, the very core, essence of a person, and this is the work of God to rescue and deliver a person from the bondage of sin, rebellion against God and deliver from the grip of satan who holds the person captive-{Read 2 Tim 2:23-25}. As a “new creation in Christ, you have new standing with God and He has placed His Spirit within you to teach you, and His Word is His means in doing so, renewing your mind to see life from God’s perspective.

When David was confronted by the prophet after committing adultery and having her husband killed, do you know what his sin was ultimately? He had a light attitude towards God’s Word and that is to have a light attitude towards God Himself,  “Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon…you have shown utter contempt for the LORD,”-{2 Chron 12:9,14}…

God gives His Word, not for admiration, nor for information sake, but for Appropriation,-Application!

“Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.“- {Matt 4:4}

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, SO THAT BY IT you may grow up in your salvation, ” -{1 Peter 2:2}

“And beginning with Moses and ALL the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in ALL the Scriptures concerning Himself.”-{Luke 24:27}

“whatever is TRUE…let your mind dwell on this.”

”Blessed is the man …whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on His law day and night.”-{Ps 1:1-2}

” But prove yourselves doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away,he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.  But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”-  {James 1:22-25}

Paul assures us in 1 Cor 2:16, “…We have the mind of Christ…” or as the CEV says, “…But we Understand what Christ is Thinking.

We know what He is thinking as He has revealed in His Word what He desires us to know.

He wants us to be able to THINK His way, see life through the lens of His Word, through having our mind renewed, aligned with His, to know Him better and through the power of the Holy Spirit {Read Phil 2:13}… to love and live this new life we have through our mind being renewed according to HIS Word!   

 God Has Given His Word and we either choose to be Wise or Foolish by our response to it.

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” -{Matt 7:24-27}.

Some may say, that does not apply to me, for I am a Christian. Yes, but the principle does apply to you and me, if we choose to refuse to Build our lives, ATTITUDES, ACTIONS according to His Word then we will and are making FOOLISH DECISIONS… and the question to be asked, “Why are we ignoring Him?” for this we do when we ignore, take His Word lightly, have a low view of it because we have a low view of Him and a high, really high view of ourselves! We miscalculate! Note again the passage, both have the same experience, streams rose, winds blew, they both responded. They Both HEARD the Word of Jesus, they both chose to respond to Him. One to submit to His Word, the other to reject. One compared to a wise person, the other a foolish person. The difference? THE FOUNDATION UPON WHICH THEY BUILT THEIR LIVES…. one on a ROCK…. the Other on SAND! Building our lives on anything other than the WORD Of God is foolish, destructive, dishonoring to Him… and as believers we too can in our ignorance or at times rebellion do likewise. Though we are saved, His, yet we can make foolish decisions, dishonoring Him at times and we have to evaluate our Thinking.

Don’t be deceived, it is possible for you and me-by merely being hearers and not doers of His Word

Delve Into His Word– With the Intent to Know Him and love Him by understanding with your mind what His Word reveals that to be

Do Renew your mind– “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”- {Rom 12:2}

Don’t be a Mindless Christian… Engage Your Mind… in His Word…so you may be effective in this world, for His Sake. – {Read 2 Cor 4:5; Ezra 7:10}