LET THIS MIND BE IN YOU

The Biblical Call to Think, Live, and Love Like Jesus

By Rev. Randy Huff

The “mind of Christ” is a curious expression with different shades of meaning. Perhaps it is easiest to begin by saying what it is not. The mind of Christ is not an appeal to the merely rational or academic. Nor does it reduce Christ to some disembodied consciousness behind or throughout the universe. The mind of Christ, happily, is more. It is an entire way of life that, to echo the popular contemporary historian, Tom Holland, “dispatched a depth charge throughout the entire world.”

When I reflect on the mind of Christ, I remember Big Bow, Kansas, not for the dusty streets, farm co-op, or railroad, as sweet as those things are in my memory, but for the little Wesleyan Church on a side street, just down from the local school and one block from the now-and-again-open café. It was in that humble church, never boasting more than 60 people, where the mind of Christ began to become real to me.

I found the mind of Christ in preachers. Eldon Fry was my first boyhood pastor in that church. Somehow, I knew his life was given to something higher. Something had captured him. There were evangelists like Kermit Farlow and John Coffey and in later years my beloved high school pastor, Lorin Miller, had the same effect. I even recall an old preacher at a camp meeting whose message gripped something deep within me that still resonates today.

Of course, I would be remiss if I left out my beloved family, both extended and immediate. My parents were given to this way, to the “mind of Christ,” and it became unavoidable in our home. In those formative years, I heard the music of Rex and LaWanda Bullock, as well as the newer songs of Evie Turnquist. Something real and deep and transforming lived in that music, and in those people, and it was drawing me in.

Later on men like Steve Heron and Steve Addison, among countless others, revealed the mind of Christ in life-altering ways. And in our beloved KMBC years, the mind of Christ flourished in the Fishers, the Lorimers, the Speases, and our dear, late friend John Neihof, among so many others. There was a something that surpassed the person and yet they retained personality, strengths, and even normal human frailties.

What was this? It was a way of knowing and living and relating that had fully captured these people. It was more than head knowledge. It surpassed mere experience or feeling. It was the living Christ Himself—lived out in everyday life.

From Scripture, one sees two main ideas behind the phrase “mind of Christ.” The first has to do with the way we think. Paul says we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, and Jesus reminds us that the inner person determines the outer life. And so in the Sermon on the Mount, we are given a new way of thinking, almost an “out with the old, in with the new.” One might paraphrase Jesus by saying: “You hate your enemies, but I say that’s the wrong way to think. Instead, love your enemies.” Or, “You’ve always thought, ‘If I don’t kill, I’ve kept the command.’ But I say, ‘If you hate your brother in your heart, it’s as if you’ve murdered him.’”

The second idea, closely related, comes from a different Greek word and conveys the meaning of “attitude.” This is most beautifully expressed in the timeless self-emptying passage of Philippians 2, where Paul says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Mind in you. We are to think like—have the same attitude as—Christ Himself. And what is that attitude? A person with the mind of Christ:

• Holds rights and privileges loosely, even lays them aside when called to.
• Is able to be emptied, to step out of self.
• Lives as a servant to others.
• Obeys God.

Perhaps the most important lesson here is that the mind of Christ shapes our entire life. Romans 12 gives foundational teaching when Paul says we are not to be “conformed to this world,” but rather “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2). This is grounded in giving our entire life to God, who then begins a beautiful work of transformation.

There is mystery here, but it is always true: the way we think changes how we live. And this brings me full circle to the beloved preachers, family, and friends of my life across the years. They were trying to change the way I think. Their ideas mattered, simple, strong ideas like:

• Stop sinning, or you will wind up in hell.
• Jesus is the answer!
• God’s way is best.
• The Bible is reliable.
• Life is worth living, and Christ makes it so.
• Heaven is real, and Christ makes it possible to go there.

Truths like these were lived out by the people I knew, and when they taught them, I swallowed them whole. And as those truths worked their way into my life, I found I could not escape the Living Christ. He had won me over through the lives He was transforming all around me.

The mind of Christ is the way of Christ: true, beautiful, timeless, winsome, and self-giving. It will cost all you have and pay you back for eternity. Open your heart wide to Christ Himself, and in time, you will find His mind—His way of understanding and living—has captured you and put you on a trajectory of good you never imagined possible.

Rev. Randy Huff is a graduate of Hobe Sound Bible College and holds a Master of Theology from Wesley Biblical Seminary. He and his wife, Jane, currently serve at the North Pole Missionary Chapel in North Pole, Alaska. From 2003 to 2010, they served on staff at Kentucky Mountain Bible College, where Randy worked as an instructor, development staff member, and administrator. He has a deep interest in Christian apologetics as well as the writings of G.K. Chesterton. Randy and Jane are the proud parents of two sons, Lawrence (FS) and Elliot ‘23. They also have a beloved daughter-in-law, Caitlyn (FS) and delight in their grandson, Jaxon.