We’ve been looking at how having the mind of Christ means we should have His attitude. This devotional reading looks at how we should work to become as He is so we may serve Him.
Nuggets
- Jesus knew His mission was to provide salvation for the world.
- Jesus was sympathetic to both those who followed Him and those who didn’t.
We come to the last devotion in the engaging our mind series in the Committing our Ways study. As with the last devotion, we are taking about characteristics Jesus had, which we can imitate.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Commit to Grow Our Habits study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this series in the study is from two sermons.
Resource
Laborious
“Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’” (Mt. 9: 37-38 ESV)
Jesus knew His mission was to provide salvation for the world.
When Jesus came down to earth, His purpose was to bring salvation to the world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (Jn. 3: 16-18 ESV).
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
Jesus came to a condemned world to restore our relationships with God. He knew that would take work, even long after He had gone.
We are called to continue His mission of calling the lost to repentance. Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to change our sinful ways to ways of righteousness through obedience.
- Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.
Glossary
No, we don’t save people. Only Jesus can do that.
But it is our mission to tell the world they need Him and He will provide salvation. “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation’” (Mk. 16: 15 ESV).
That is going to take work. Jesus call us to be laborers. Each of us has a way in which we are to serve Him.
But you know what that means, don’t you? Our service is to be for others.
We are to grow our relationships with God (and that takes work, too!), but we must share His good news with others.
It isn’t all about us.
Sympathetic
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4: 15 ESV)
Jesus was sympathetic to both those who followed Him and those who didn’t.
Jesus knows our human weaknesses. Even though He is perfect and pure, He understands the challenges that we have. It pains Him when we do not choose Him.
Look at these verses. “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation’” (Lk. 19: 41-44 ESV).
Let’s put this into context. Jesus had just entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. We call this the Triumphal Entry.
Jesus should have been riding high. People had acknowledged His mission. “… ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’” (Lk. 19: 38 ESV).
But Jesus wasn’t all smiles and warm and gushy feelings. He wept over the city. He wept because they were going to reject Him and be destroyed.
The crowd hadn’t turned on Jesus yet. He knew they would, but He was still sympathetic to those who would reject Him.
Read the Hebrews verse again. Jesus can sympathize with us because He “… in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4: 15 ESV).
Jesus was tempted just as we are. He knows how difficult it can be to choose to follow God.
The only difference between Jesus and us is that He always chose to be obedient to God. Many times, we choose not to.
What was Jesus’ attitude? “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ …” (Lk. 23: 34 ESV).
How are we when someone rejects us or hurts us? We are more like the Sons of Thunder. “And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ (Lk. 9: 52-54 ESV).
Ooo, baby. We need an attitude adjustment!
Feelings of sympathy can be more difficult when we don’t have shared experiences on which to base those feelings. Parry addressed that. He wrote, “Differences of position and circumstances among men materially affect their power to [sympathize] with one another.”
Resource
I’ve said many times in these devotions that I know some of the things I’ve gone through is to help others go through the same things. Would I have rather not gone through what I went through? Ooo, baby, yes!
But now I can have a clue about what someone else is going through. We’re different people so we react differently, but I know some of the things faced in these circumstances. Even if I don’t know everything, I can sympathize.
When Jesus got back to Heaven, He did not forget all His earthly experiences and feelings. He can now use those to advocate for us to God.
What this boils down to is we are to have the mercy of Christ. God’s mercy is an act of sovereign will that produces an unexpected and undeserved response from God as He responds in love to our needs. Disciples’ mercy is a characteristic of compassion for the needs of others, especially those who are in distress, because of gratitude to God.
We do this through grace. Grace is a free and unmerited gift of love from the Heavenly Father, given through His Son, Jesus Christ, that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Glossary
All throughout the Gospels, we are shown Jesus’s compassion. We are to imitate that.
Rollo talked about Jesus’ sensitivity. He felt His emotions during His experiences, so He was open to feeling the emotions of others.
Part of the reason for that was Jesus’ appreciation for the beauty of life. We’ve heard it said that we cannot appreciate the good as much if we don’t experience the bad. Isn’t the flip side correct as well?
Resource
We need to feel deeply in order to sympathize with others.
What I love about this verse is that it flat out says, Jesus is touched by our weakness (sorrow, pain, and anguish) and loves us anyway whether we give into the temptation to sin or not. Oh, yes. He would much rather we didn’t commit the sin.
But Jesus is still our High Priest when we do.
What this does not say is that we are to change our attitudes to allow sins to be okay. We have to make sure that we do not give sympathetic a worldview meaning. This does not mean that we are so sympathetic to that we condone their sin.
We are not to judge others, but neither are we to believe it is okay to sin. Jesus is sympathetic to sinners, but He still calls them to repentance. He calls them to give up their sins.
We have to maintain the attitude of Christ, Who’s mission it was to save us from our sins.
Making the Connections
This may be chasing a rabbit, but look what Parry said. He wrote,
“And here we may note the bearing of this promise of ‘grace to help in time of need’ upon the case of a certain class of persons whom we believe to be Christians, true disciples of the Redeemer, but who stand aloof from the fellowship of His people, and shrink from a public avowal of their discipleship. Their reluctance in this direction, they tell us, arises from the sense of their infirmities, and their dread of bringing [dishonor] on Christ’s Church. But such a plea is essentially unbelief. It arises from a failure to apprehend God’s power to keep from falling those whom He has graciously converted.”
Resource
When we think we are so bad a sinner we can’t fellowship with other disciples, we are really saying that we don’t believe Jesus can or will forgive us. We think our sin was too big for His saving grace.
Mule fritters. We should not waste our time thinking something that is not true.
There is only one unpardonable sin, and in my opinion, that is unbelief.
Glossary
But isn’t that the point? We are committing the unpardonable sin when we don’t think God has the power to save us from a sin and keep us committing it again.
Ouch! It isn’t only that we don’t believe there is a God, but that He is not Sovereign God.
How Do We Apply This?
- ABCD
- Abhor and resist sin.
Father God. We want to have the mind of Christ. We want His attitude to be the core of our being. Help us to grow more like Him. Amen.
What do you think?
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