Man, I tell you. I love the scriptures for various reasons. I love it for its encouragement. I love it for its validity of ancient accounts. I love it for its poetic flare. And I love it for its correction. But what I really love about it is its tendency to display the mind and thoughts of God.
We know that God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). They are so much higher. Far beyond what we can comprehend. But every so often, the Bible gives us glimpses into the mind of God. I think one of the best ways to see how God’s mind works is to hear what God in the flesh had to say. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word become flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1 and 14).
The Word in the flesh was none other than Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. As I re-read the Gospel of Luke, I am once again trying to decipher and gather as much from the gospel as I can. I also find it divinely ironic that after I started re-reading it, I started seeing billboards throughout my city (I’m a southern gal under the Bible Belt) that says, “Who is Jesus?” – Read Luke’s Gospel. I’m like, “Wow! Right on time!”
There are so many nuggets of wisdom poured from Christ’s mind unto the scriptures that we have access to today. I don’t think I or anyone else will ever gather and completely grasp all the knowledge that Christ dropped on us. But I did peep this one little bit of knowledge that He dropped in Luke 20 this week. Listen at what He said:
But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
(Luke 20:37-38 NIV)
So, I think I covered this before in either an article or a social media post. But when we think of God and His Words, we must always remember that He is Alpha and Omega. Therefore, He always thinks on a grand scheme.
Something as concrete and clear cut as life and death is viewed differently in God’s mind. For you and me, when someone is dead, they are just that. They are gone. Yes, we believers, believe in the afterlife. But we classify people as dead or alive. The quick and the dead as they say.
But God doesn’t view anyone as dead. To God, everyone—dead or alive—is alive. It says, “for to Him all are alive”. It also says God is not the God of the dead. Yet, God has always been referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… who are all dead.
But not to God. To Him, they are just resting. They are merely asleep. When we look at John 11:11 we see that Christ initially said, “Lazarus is asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.” The scripture goes on to say that the disciples thought Jesus meant natural sleep.
I guess they were thinking on the lines of “Okay, Jesus if he’s sleeping, he’ll wake up from his little nap on his own… why are we going out of our way to wake somebody up?” Then Jesus had to put it in layman’s terms or should I say human terms. Jesus then said it so the disciples could understand. He plainly stated, “Lazarus is dead”.
But again, to God, no one is really dead because even after we leave these earthly bodies, we still have our spiritual bodies. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:40, we have two kinds of bodies. We have celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies meaning we have heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. When our earthly bodies expire, our heavenly bodies live on.
Now, what happens to our heavenly bodies is contingent on what we do while in our earthly bodies. This is a little off subject, but here I go anyway. What we do on earth will affect our final destination. If you believe in heaven, you must believe in a hell too. If not, what is it that you believe? What happens to the wicked when they die?
No way everyone is making it into heaven. You mean to tell me little Ray Ray shot the club up, killed innocent people, died without repentance but somehow managed to get into the same heaven as Moses and ‘em? Excuse my slang but I’m being transparent. That’s not how that works… and I thank God that’s not how it works either. God has made it clear in scriptures who will and who will not make it into heaven. Check out Revelations 22 for starters if you are not sure. But I digress… back to the mind of God.
The entire point of this article is this: God does not look at things the way we look at them. There’s really no such thing as someone being dead to God. Imagine how many other concepts are like this in the mind of God. Going back to the account of Lazarus, Christ was glad Lazarus was dead. Christ purposefully waited for Lazarus to die just so He could display His power and authority. He did it just so they might believe that He was God.
Who thinks like that? Who waits for someone to die just so that others might believe in a higher power? Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, lied on, and thrown in a pit. But it was all just a crazy journey to promote him to be ruler over Egypt. Who thinks like that? Why make someone go through all of that just to exalt them?
Who decides that they are going to free a people, but not before their situation gets rougher? God intentionally told the children of Israel to wait by the water just so Pharoah could come up and trap them by the Red Sea. Why? Who thinks like that? Why wouldn’t He just let them journey on without the threat of Pharoah? Why make them wait?
Who decides that they are going to make someone King over Israel, but not before they have to run for their lives from the current king who is trying to take their life? Why did He make David go through so many strongholds? Why did he make David an anointed nomad?
Why? If you’re anything like me, you have your moments when you just have to ask why. Why God? I don’t get it. Why this? Why that? Why haven’t you answered this prayer? Do you not care? Why?
But my goodness… the mind of God. It’s powerful. It’s all knowing. I am reminded that every time someone asks God questions, His answers leave them in awe, in silence, or both.
Remember how Job questioned why God took everything from him? Do you recall some of God’s response? God answered his question with questions. God asked Job things like if he knew whether rain had a father or had he ever given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its rightful place. Instead of answering Job’s question, God explained His authority.
I’m also reminded of how the Pharisees consistently tried to incriminate Christ with their questioning. But His answers always left them in awe or silence.
They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.
(Luke 20:26 NIV)
Before Christ, had even stepped into adulthood, His answers left inquirers in shock. Luke 1:47 records the account of when Jesus was only 12 years old. It says, “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.”
When God gives an answer to us, it can humble us into silence like Job or it can awe us into silence like the Pharisees and onlookers. But I have to be honest. Sometimes, God’s answers just don’t make sense to us.
Before the children of Israel were freed, Pharoah made their workload harder. Moses didn’t understand this and asked God about it. But God didn’t tell Moses why things were made worse for them. God’s only response was “you will see what I will do to Pharoah… he will let them go.”
That answer validated and confirmed the children of Israel’s release, but it didn’t explain their hardship. When God explained His authority to Job, it established God’s power, but it didn’t explain why Job had to lose everything. And this my dear reader, is where we have to make a decision.
Because sometimes, no matter how much we ask, sometimes God just won’t explain. And I reckon He won’t because we can never understand His mind. I would think God explaining His mind to us would be similar to explaining trigonometry to a dog.
If God explained all that He knows to us, I am sure we’d stand there looking as clueless as a puppy with their tongues hanging out their mouths… or maybe our brains would explode from trying to take in such holy, vast knowledge. I don’t know.
But I do know one thing. I may not always understand God’s mind, but I do understand His character. He is merciful, He is caring, and He died for us while we were yet sinners. There are those who will never love God, but He will always love them. There are those who mock God, but He died for them. There are those who do know God and know how to live according to His Word but choose not to. Yet, if they were to turn to Him and repent, just like the prodigal son, God would run to them and accept them back into His loving arms.
We don’t have to completely understand the mind of God to know that He loves us. My two-year old daughter doesn’t understand many of my decisions. She doesn’t understand my mind because she’s incapable of doing so. But she knows I love her. And considering God wants us to be like children to inherit the kingdom, I suppose we are to look to our Heavenly Father in the same capacity.
Reader, the mind of God is one in which we can only understand if He gives us the wisdom to do so. And when He doesn’t let us in on what He is thinking, we have to trust that a God who is the beginning and the end, a God who is “I AM”, a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing is a God who possesses a mind we can rely on.
So, I’ll bid you all a farewell. And please, when you can’t comprehend the mind of God, know that His mind is on you. He always has His mind on you and how to love you in the greatest capacity known to mankind. It always is. It always will be.
Be blessed you guys and have a wonderful week.
Quin Arrington's debut book "And Then You Shall Have Good Success: Attaining Good Success God's Way" is available on Amazon in paperback and eBook format. Link to book listed below.
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