Of course, this does not come all at once. The answer to the old riddle, "How do you swallow an elephant," is "One piece at a time." But, what you can do for the moment is to determine that when there is a conflict between what you believe and what Jesus believed, that he is not the one who is wrong. When Paul says eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered in to the hearts of men the things that God has prepared for those who love Him, he is saying that the way that God thinks is different than the way we think. if we are going to find open windows into the heart and mind of God, we are going to have to concede that we cannot know Him without His help. God did not decide that His Spirit would lead and guide us into "all truth" because He didn't want to take a chance that we might make a mistake or two. It was because it is absolutely necessary. Left to our own hearts, our own minds, we go hopelessly astray.
Just how much do you suppose that you know about God? Each of us come to Christ with our own imaginations, our own guesses about God and how He is or should be. Where did we get these notions from? Rumor? A child's-eye view from Sunday School? A Bible Story book? Or is it something that we have cooked up in our own brains as to what God " ought" to be like? Maybe a little of each?
One thing is certain. God has always been what He is since longer than I have been.
But, if in the middle of my crisis of faith, I ask the question, "What did Jesus believe?," and rest in it when I cannot find my way, sooner or later I will come out of the mist that blocks my view and find that His way was not merely a good, not merely a better way, but the best and only true way. As He said, "I am the way... (John 14:6a)
And there is a great benefit to this: for when I find that His way works, that his way is the best, I have no reason to return to my own. Further, what we believe rules us, so that when we embrace his faith, our lives are transformed. We will live and think in a new and living way we never had thought of before. As Paul says, our minds must be renewed. (Romans 12:2)
" Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God: 7, But made himself of no reputation,
and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made
in the likeness of men: 8, And being found in fashion as a
man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross." - Phillipians 2:5-6.
It's all easy to say, but the doing of it is the thing. It says, "Let." That means that there is a choice to be made We need to allow God to put His mind in us. That is the great act of faith.
For some of us this comes easier than for others. Our stubbornness, our ignorance, our misunderstandings stand in our way. Sometimes it is more our stubbornness than anything. We came to Jesus for relief and release from our sin and its consequences, but we did not exactly sign on for the tough stuff. When we read passages like this, we imagine that this was meant for others - those with stronger constitutions, for those who are braver. We can sit on the sidelines for most of our Christian lives because we are convinced that this scripture was made for others. And so, we live out our Christian lives in disappointment and frustration. it wasn't meant to be that way.
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