BY GREG CRUM

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:7-9

According to the prophet Isaiah, the mindset of God and the mindset of man are not automatically congruent. In fact, it would seem that by default the opposite is true. The way God thinks about things, His reality, if you will, is different from the world’s perspective. Now, you might be thinking, “Duh!” and, yes, that should be as clear as crystal to all living in this day, but based on how a lot of modern believers are living their lives, I wonder if our understanding in this matter is quite as clear as it should be.

Truth be told, the perspectives of many that are “born again” are not congruent with the ideas of God, but that shouldn’t be a huge surprise to us. Just because we’re saved doesn’t mean we automatically think like God does. That’s why the Word of God commands us in Romans 12:2 to “renew” our minds, or in other words, to change them to better reflect the mindset of God.

So, we are commanded to renew our minds, and most of us understand that the starting point for Biblical mind renewal is reading the Bible. However, mind renewal that achieves a like perspective with God takes more than just casual reading of the Bible. It takes allowing what we read and what is revealed by the Holy Spirit through that reading to change our minds from what we previously thought to what God thinks instead.

Friends, we desperately need mind renewal in the Body of Christ today, maybe now more than ever before. In some areas of life, our minds are further away from the thoughts of the Lord than they’ve ever been. We have had, and are having, a difficult time living what we say we believe and receiving what we say we have, and it seems we are just okay with acting like there’s nothing wrong with this scenario.

God has an abundant life for all His children — it’s real and for us today — but believers are struggling to live in this “realness” of God. Why? Primarily because the realities of this world hinder our belief in the realities of God, and we have refused to forsake the one to embrace the other!

Now, in an effort to get our minds pointed back in the right direction (Heavenward), let’s think about the nature of what is “real” and what is not.

First, what is reality? I mean, what makes something “real” in our lives? Some of the definitions you find of reality relay that it is something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily, that it is the totality of real things and events, and that it is something that occurs or exists actually. So, in those definitions, you see the idea of “real” conveyed.

What makes something “real”? Again, the word real is defined as something having objective, independent existence, something not artificial, fraudulent or illusory.

What’s the takeaway? Reality or “realness” is something that genuinely exists; it’s concrete, not abstract, and doesn’t need our belief to exist independent of us.

Okay, if that’s the case, if, say, the realities of God don’t need our belief to exist, then why doesn’t every believer live in these realities regardless of what they think and believe? Well, while it is true that what is “real” to God is real irrespective of what we believe about the matter, the only way we can enjoy these realities is to accept them by faith and embrace them as our truth.

Think of your salvation as an example. God sent His son to die for all, and in God’s perspective all have salvation bought and paid for them, yet we know not all have received their salvation, and many will choose to go to Hell because they have failed to embrace God’s perspective on their sin and atonement through Christ. Here God’s thoughts are for salvation, but they have failed to live in His realities because they have embraced the ideas of the world.

Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.