I heard a quote recently that got me thinking about how we as Christians are to be thinking differently. The quote was from C.S. Lewis’s book, “God in the Dock”:
“If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad. Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it is a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic.”
We know, of course, that this is a terrible world, and no “optimistic” viewpoint will make it better. On the other hand, our viewpoint must be very optimistic when focusing on the world to come—when Christ will rule this earth.
Truly everything in this life is based on how we view things—as C.S. Lewis stated above. Our mindsets cannot be just for the sake of chasing happiness or trying to live our best lives. Our lives are for the training to become more and more like Jesus Christ. The very fact that we are called Christians should be an indication for us that we are to become more and more like Him in terms of how we think, how we act and how we go about our day-to-day activities.
We have the stories in the Bible of people who went through tough hard times. The stories about Daniel and his three friends tell us about their true reliance on God. This didn’t just come on the spur of the moment. This needed to have been built in them over a period of time. They trained their minds, they built their relationship and reliance on God up to the point where they were able to go through the trials they went through and make it through BECAUSE of God’s providence and strength.
I have often thought about how we are told that our mindset is to be constantly changing. We find this in Ephesians 4:23 (AMP Bible) telling us that we must “be continually renewed in the spirit of [our] mind [having a fresh, untarnished mental and spiritual attitude].” To properly do this, it requires constant vigilance and a desire to grow close to God and Christ – in order to think like them; in order to be in sync with them.
It requires us to lean towards putting on Christ. This is iterated over and over again in the New Testament (Romans 13:14, Ephesians 4, Colossians 3). This time we have now is truly for our training. I think that we are beginning to see that people are facing greater and harder trials for the sake of growing closer to God. We must each come to the point where we are willing to surrender everything over to God and learn to follow His lead. This can either come from us actively seeking this OR it can come from God having to step in and start directing our lives so that we learn to turn to Him.
With this being the case – we must be aware that this is one of the prime areas where Satan will attempt to attack us over and over again. He will not stop trying to remove our attention from the process of renewal and attempt to get us to stay distracted and overwhelmed with every-day matters.
The option and the choice is ours. 2 Corinthians 3:18 states that God’s Spirit in us should be helping us to be transformed day by day: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Again, in order to accomplish this, we MUST be doing this daily. We must be spending time in God’s Word (His POWER) so we can be led.
In Romans 8:6, we read: “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” The ONLY way to be spiritually minded is to be putting on Christ. This Truth is powerful if we put it into practice.
If we need inspiration – we can get it by turning to God and daily doing what David showed us as he lived his life.
In Psalms 119:146-148, he says: “I cry out to You; Save me, and I will keep Your testimonies. I rise before the dawning of the morning, And cry for help; I hope in Your word. My eyes are awake through the night watches, That I may meditate on Your word.”
