Mar 21, 2016 Words of Grace – His Thinking
Monday – His Thinking
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality
with God a thing to be grasped
” Philippians 2:5-6
What was Jesus thinking? We see in the Gospels what he did and we hear what he taught, but what was in his mind? The answer is that he was considering his identity and his purpose, and how he would accomplish it.
Jesus Christ was the eternal God the Son, enjoying perfect union and fellowship with God the Father and God the Spirit. He knew that the plan of God was to save a people for himself from out of the world. He knew that he, as the Son, was to take on humanity in order to deal with the sin problem of humans. He knew he would suffer the death sentence for sin on their behalf. Thinking about all of this, he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” He thought about his state of being as God the Son with privileges, rights, and power and without humanity, limitation, and temptation. He regarded this as something that needed to be laid aside in order to bring about salvation. He was thinking of himself as a servant.
John 13 gives us a picture of the Son of God who took on humanity, serving his disciples by washing their feet. But here, too, we are told what Jesus was thinking before the foot washing.
He knew that the time had come for him to leave this world. He knew that God the Father had put the decision to go to the cross in his hands. He knew that he had come from the Father for the purpose of the cross. And he knew that, after his death on the cross, he would be raised from the dead. Knowing all of this, he washed their feet.
The foot washing was more than a practical act. It was a prophetic one. Yes, the service he rendered was cleaning feet, but that only pointed to the greater service of giving people a clean heart through the cross that awaited him.
These windows into the thinking of Jesus show us how we, the followers of Christ, are to think of ourselves and act toward each other. We are to have the mind of Christ among ourselves. Think on these things.
Read Philippians 2:5-6 and John 13:1-3. What observations and applications do you draw from the thinking of Jesus?
– Scott