As A Child: The Mind of Christ

October 25th, 2005

" And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3"

When we have only the natural mind, we are blind to the most critical ways and nature of God. It took the blinding light of Glory for Paul to come to terms that for all his KNOWLEDGE, he was without understanding. He was daily in the Word, the Torah---he had the best teaching of men on earth at the time, he participated from what can be read daily in the synagogue or Temple and in his own words, was zealous. There was a 'crossing over' though, that he had missed, without which one 'knows' about God, maybe even with expertise, whatever that is, but does not walk with God in fullness.

When I first came to the LORD [or vice versa], it did not happen in a blinding light. I was a University professor at a medical school at the time, and had no real thoughts for God. Raised Catholic and attending church often as a young person [often means as many times as a Baptist]; at home we had tapestries of Jesus on the wall, my mother painted a few religious pictures, and there were pictures of Mary, the sacred heart, crucifixes, and other religious paraphenalia. I was taught mostly in the ordinances of the Church, only secondarily in the Bible, and that was usually sections out of a missal, with latin or other readings until Vatican II changed everything and we could sing folk music at Mass. By 16, I felt I had no need for religion or church, and spent years floundering with different philosophical perspectives, particularly humanism and existentialism. In college most of us were at best 'agnostic' or atheist, or more realistically young and busy with other things. The first time I remember considering whether there really was some kind of God as an adult was when I was driving through the hills of North Carolina, and overcome with the beauty, just began to at least question whether there really was a God. Subsequently after several years of trials, and while successful on a professional level, life had become tough as it does for many: I was a single parent having suffered a divorce, had a child with juvenile diabetes and a toddler, an oppressive situation at work, new mortgage and so on. One afternoon, while my son took a nap and my daughter was still at public school, I picked up a Bible which had been given to her and which had since fallen in the washer, and began to peel apart the pages, serendipitously. I began reading the book of Proverbs, which I realized later was a providential place to start for a wondering psychologist, and I began to think that just perhaps there was more wisdom to the 'way people are' than what is found in psychology alone.

Not long after, I began talking to some co-workers who were Christians, who suggested some readings, but I just kept reading. This lengthy preface leads to the passage that convicted me that the Word was real, God was real, Jesus was real and if that was true than so was everything else He spoke of. The passage was:

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some [say that thou art] John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed [it] unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:14-18

The other passage which strongly convicted me was the passage at the beginning of this blog:
" And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3
"

The first overwhelmed me, because after much reading, I realized that was the choice, the choice every living person must make, whether a youth or a university professor, whether an urbanite or a tribesmen, all were counted alike in that choice, "Whom say ye that I AM?" Jesus does not leave many choices. If He was the Jewish Messiah, then everything else was true, and if not then all 'truths' are as good as another. But he was seen calming the winds and waves, healing the sick, feeding massive crowds from hardly anything at all, raising the dead: all this was seen not just by his own, but by soldiers from Rome and Pharisees and Saduccees who had no vested interest in defending him, in fact the opposite. But after the discussion about who others said he was, what King herod had said, or speculation among the clergy or prophets, His question is directed at Peter Whom say YE that I AM? [The I AM always finds a way to introduce himself in important situations]. And the reply? Seem not remarkable? It was the foundation of the house He would build. The Jewish fisherman declares Him the Messiah, the Son the Living God. One statement setting sail to 2000 years of faith, and the question repeated billions of times.
But what Jesus says next is also remarkable: He lets Peter [Simon} know that he did not receive that thought of his own ability or reasoning, but that it was REVEALED to him by His Father in Heaven. This was DIVINE knowledge and the beginning of a new mind. It was also the one point of faith that caused Jesus to give Simon Peter the keys to the Kingdom, and the point of faith upon which His Kingdom would stand.

AS A CHILD
The Second Passage is the critical passage to understanding how anyone wrestling with belief comes to the LORD at all in these days when the world hates faith and tries to destroy it: conversion is not coming up to an altar and signing a pledge card, or kneeling at one and receiving bread, or any of the other things one sees readily, but COMING AS A CHILD.
A Child trusts a parent: one has to trust the one who saves. Further, especially among bright and academic people, the idea of 'becoming like a child' is not enticing, many consider it the putting away of reason. But it is not putting away reason, only exchanging it for divine reason. One has to let go of pre-conceived notions of the 'way the world is' in order to be taught of God. When one can look and trust, deciding what really happened on that dark afternoon on Golgotha that changed the world, then one enters life: life that will last.

It was terribly difficult for me to surrender to that kind of trust and belief: I was a researcher---I wanted evidence. But Salvation or the healing of man to God, the saving for Eternal Life from everlasting suffering, and the atonement for ALL sin and separation from God that we might continue even after death in His presence: this is the high calling: but we have to trust in the very same manner as a child trusts his mother or father. When you do, you will find the rest to be true and worth suffering and dying for.

Spurgeon, the great London preacher constantly preached his theme: "Look and Believe". Pascal the great philosopher/mathematician/scientist had a childlike trusting faith in Jesus with no apologies. The list of scientists, even pivotal ones such as Pasteur and Fahrenheit and others, learned to believe as children, even beyond the gift of Salvation to the 6 day creation. No doctrinal matter is one of human reason and 'convincing': human reason cannot explain God. The first and most critical basis for coming to the Messiah that saves, that has already saved, is to enter in at the door, and become as a child: not exchanging human reason for stupidity or blind leaps, but for the wisdom of God. This is the foundational principle of the Mind of Christ.