Mind of Christ vs. Carnal Mind

[donken]

Hi.   I believe there is a common misconception about the makeup of the carnal mind as opposed to the mind of Christ, at least for some of us.  We read in Romans 6 that the carnal mind is enmity with or contrary to the mind {law} of God.  What I believe we sometimes forget is that the mind of Christ knows everything the carnal mind does, and more.  It is just that the mind of Christ has all things of the world and of God placed in a proper perspective according to the truth of the knowledge and experience of both good and evil.  Man is automatically born with desires that are self centered and selfish in us and also with the seed of God in us that is the source of all the true good things mankind does do in the world.   When we believe that God is like the spirit of the world and like the spirit of the Old Testimony that is to pass away by being understood as an OLD belief, we are still carnal.  We can say, we are worldly and in agreement mentally and spiritually with the ways and works of the world. 
In that belief through the spirit of man that is in us naturally at birth and as children, we believe God does evil to evil doers.  Christianity has believed in times past as we know, that God does both the good works and the evil or harmful afflictive destructive works that are mentioned in the Old Testimony which is of man.  The old Testament is the spirit of the first covenant, of the man that is to become understood as the state and mind and condition of OUR OWN OLD MAN.  That is the man, the child, that is to PASS AWAY by being replaced by the more mature or adult condition of Jesus Christ through the dominion of the Spirit or LIFE of GOD in us as our Spiritually Married condition.
The mind of Christ knows about and has experienced the results of both good and evil events and experiences in the world but is able to DIVIDE them apart correctly.  This begins through Faith In God through the witness of Jesus Christ that shows that GOD does no violence, is harmless to man and the physical world, and loves all people even when they are evil and reject HIM.   Being forgiving of slights in the world toward us is GOOD FOR THE FORGIVER.  Forgiving someone does not necessarily change them, but it will change us from a carnally ruled individual to a mature Christian individual along with fulfilling all the other witness of Jesus Christ WITHIN US.  We are what we willingly and agreeably obey.  If we obey Jesus because we believe His witness is the true witness of OUR FATHER in us then we will eventually become Jesus Christ and also be ONE WITH OUR FATHER who is in us as our LORD also.   The kingdom of GOD is to be within us, Scripture tells us.  So should our heart tell us and thus the mind of Christ, the mind of the Spirit of God.

Having the mind of Christ does not mean we will not be wise about evil, but we will know God does not do the evil and neither are we to do the evil.  The mind of Christ is a renewed mind.  The scripture says we are to RENEW THE SPIRIT of our mind, it does not say we are to "forget" what we learned while in the carnal mind.  The carnal mind is really the mind that is of the spirit or ways of the world, believing that God is both a doer of the good things that are in the world {love} and also will do or already does the evil things in the world and will do them to people.

The mind of Christ is the mind that knows the truth of God but also has God's wisdom about all the things of the mind we had in and through the ways of the world.  The mind of Christ will teach us to correctly separate the tares in us from the wheat that is also in us.  WE will begin to have the ways of the lusts of the flesh divided out from among the lusts of the Spirit and we will and are to follow ONLY the ways of the Spirit of GOD as being of GOD.  As said, we can satisfy the needs of the body while we are in the world, but we are not to do evil to anyone or harm anyone or take improper advantage of any one to satisfy those needful appetites that are of the body only.

As Matthew 13 tells us about the harvest time.  The tares are to be BOUND FIRST.  They are not entirely removed "at first".  They are to be bound or kept within the parameters of Jesus Christ while we are in a flesh and blood body in the world.   Love God, our {any} neighbor, and ourselves equally.  Choose the good and refuse the evil.  The carnal or worldly mind is one that believes that some of the evil is done by God upon people and therefore okay for them to do also while naming the name of Jesus Christ and or God as their reason.  The carnal mind is enmity or against the mind of Christ we read.  The carnal mind is a mind that can have knowledge and a faith about God and believe and know many things but has them in an improper perspective.  If we do evil to "bad people, our enemies" as we may think of them, and do that evil in the name of God, we are simply establishing our own ideas and ways or righteousness and have not subjected our selves to the righteousness of God.

Pro_11:6  The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness.

Rom_10:3  For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Love in Christ.  Ken

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Amen. The tares are bound for a season, then cast into the fire. They are bound, to keep that particular thing from manifesting until the root of it can be removed. Things are not removed to go into the fire until you have been proved (tempered like steel is tempered to make it stronger) in that area and found that Satan has no place to stand in you in regards to whatever it is. In other words, you have been tested repeatedly, and will not yield to that particular sin anymore. Resist the devil and he will flee.

Otherwise, if you cast something out before the season of tempering, you only make the person's condition worse, because if they sin again after casting out the unclean spirit (anything not like Holy Spirit), then the thing multiplies in strength.

Perfect example for those of you who understand the workings of the Holy Ghost in regards to the spiritual gifts. I was praying for a man with word of knowledge and word of wisdom in operation, and he was being delivered of things at the order of the Holy Ghost. When it came to one particular spirit the Lord revealed to me, I went about to cast it out and into the fire, anticipating that if He showed it to me, He wants me to take authority over it and cast it out and into the fire of the living God.

Instead, I heard plainly, "NO!" Puzzled, I inquired of the Lord why. He said, "Twice I have taken this from him, and twice he has taken it back via his will. THIS time, he has to fast and pray it out (being proved). I told him, and his response? "That's true, He did take it out twice and twice I took it back. Did He tell you how long I have to fast to get it out this time?"

True story. Believe it or not. Blessings....

PS. And in this application, the "end of the world", is the end of THAT spirit's ruling in YOUR world/earth-en vessel. Interestingly, one of the words related to that phrase, is "ankle", ie. the end of YOUR "world". He is so funny.

[donken]

Yes.  What you are saying, {as I see it}, is that we have to be perfected, just like Jesus had to be perfected by remaining obedient to God and keeping the enmity that is to be abolished eventually, under the rule of the Spirit of God in Him.  The enmity is simply the flesh lusts that lust or desire against the Spirit and vice versa, as Galatians 5 reminds us.   Jesus remained obedient to God's Spirit in him and the witness of the Father for us from the beginning of his open ministry to the end when he died physically.    As He himself said, on the third day I will be perfected.  We are to follow Him "all the way" to the father, spiritually speaking.

The "tares" are the source of the enmity that has to be "bound" and then abolished entirely at the end when one is free from the restrictions of time and space, which is also what Jesus witnessed his body as obtaining.  The freedom.  I would just mention here that Jesus "had to be perfected".  The word perfected means to be finished or completed.

Jesus also said that "if" we hear his words and do not do them {all ?} we build our house {body} on the sand and will lose it.   But if we hear his words and DO THEM we are building our body on a rock, a sound foundation as it were.

In context with this is a scripture we can find in James about showing what we believe by how we live and what we do in this world.

Jas_2:18  Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

As you may know, some people discredit the book of James for this very verse.  Do they not want to consider "doing" what Jesus said, perhaps.???

God bless, ken

[donken]

The natural mind, the carnal mind and carnal lusts in our natural state of existence when we are first born and experience the good and evil that comes upon us at times in the world, causes us to believe that God can direct evil against us to hurt us, or to teach us to learn a lesson if some think that is why it is done, and think by thinking that way that God ALSO DOES good and evil, or at least has EVIL THOUGHTS AGAINST US.

God is love.  Love thinks no evil scripture says.   The truth is, if evil has power over us, we will die from the evil we put into existence.  Think of that in regard to Jesus' death.

This of course would not answer the question why some men or women live as dictators and do much evil and order much torture and killing do not have evil done to them of the same type, and yet some can die in a car accident or be murdered or the like when they are young or newly married or the like.  So, where is the righteousness in this?  God is righteous.  I think there is not much argument about God being righteous.

[josh]

the humans soul biblically
as consisting of both an animals soul and godly soul
where the way is not that the animal soul is sinful
but that the human soul
has not exercised proper dominion over the earth
bring disharmony twixt the 2 components

symbolically there is where barley is the needs of the animal soul
and wheat the needs of the godly soul

more on this at
jewishwoodlands.com/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/2127028/jewish/The-Seven-Fruits-of-the-Soul.htm

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Just so you know, you must have missed a letter. The link does not work. Blessings....

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: @ donken.....my  :2c:

Let me try to make this clear as I see it, IMO.....there is not ONE THING any "mature Christian" is going to be able to DO to make this world into paradise again. We cannot, by TAKING THOUGHT, ie. changing our minds and "doing right", improve a thing. We've had 2000+ years of 2 days to prove that flesh, even ANOINTED flesh, is incapable of being the savior or the reigning King, OR of bringing NEW RESURRECTED LIFE into existence.

The ONLY THING we can do and even that we can't do without Him, is; DIE SO HE CAN LIVE. Everybody wants a resurrection, but you have to die to get one! It is given unto man to die (to self) once, and then the judgment (if you are still standing here when He comes, YOU HAVEN'T DIED YET). We know if we die with Him then we shall be raised with Him.

They don't need somebody to tell them how to live (right) by the ten commandments, they know how to do that, their own conscience bears them witness, and if you confirm it for them to judge them, you just provided the two witnesses necessary under the law to convict, PLUS the same judgment will be meted out to you. So clearly that's not the answer because that's the ministry of condemnation, which is a double edged sword.

They need somebody to tell them how to die, so HE can live, and once fully alive IN US, to catch us up with Him, so WE can truly live or have life! The gospel IS the death, burial and resurrection of Christ AND adding to that Paul's continued revelation revealing of JUST WHERE Christ IS resurrecting up out of! Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory.

In Phillipians Paul said.....  3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;  11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.  12 Not as though I had already attained , either were already perfect : but I follow after , if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Paul said he wanted to know Him and the power of his resurrection, BEFORE he physically died, if by any means he might attain it. He says here," not as though he already attained (the resurrection)"....well obviously not if he was still alive, so what was he talking about? There is a resurrection to be obtained while in still in the body, mortality swallowed up of immortality. We shall not all sleep! Glory! Blessings...

[WhiteWings]

:cloud9: Just so you know, you must have missed a letter. The link does not work. Blessings....

Works fine. You connection requires  :winkgrin:a few reloads quite often

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Oh, ok.....my bad.  :winkgrin:

[donken]

Hi
Gal_5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
The carnal mind is enmity with the law {nature} of God.  So, which of the two above mentioned conditions is the carnal mind founded on, because this is the only two "positions" there are.  Man is "in both", and the ENMITY in HIS FLESH is what Jesus ruled over in his adult life.   The Father was\is IN him.  So, is the father in you.

Gal 5:14  For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Gal 5:15  But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

So, if ALL the LAW of God is fulfilled in one word, love thy neighbour as thyself, is that not the "law" of the eternal God?   Do we think God is of any other mind?

If you personally do not think God is of any other mind, then read scripture according to the Spirit that gives life to find the FATHER in you in the scripture.

The enemies that the army of God is pictured being against and destroying in the scriptures is done internally, in our spirit.  Make the inside clean and the outside or flesh WILL be clean.  The problem seems to be stated as being within us, as in ... both the tares and the wheat remain and are in believers of Christ who are still following some of the ways of the world,  In the world is both good and evil.   A double minded person shall receive nothing from the Lord.

Jas 1:5  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
Jas 1:6  But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Jas 1:7  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
Jas 1:8  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

If you are feeling love, it is alive in you.  But when anger, greed, envy etc. as mentioned here as lusts or desires of the flesh "only" enter into us or become the mood we are in, love is no where to be FELT.  The anger etc. is using  the life in us to act out the desires of the flesh that are contrary to the lust of the spirit.  God is spirit Jesus said.  The lusts of the flesh are "of the world" the "spirit or nature of the world", and when we think some carnal things are also of God then we are Deceived of the serpent in our body, the law or principle or power of sin {lust} that is only in our body.  I am not accusing or belittling anything we may fell or do as humans, I am simply trying to support and show the foundation of dividing the scriptures and our understanding of God and the world from each other.  The scriptures do need to be divided and any carnal attitude or act or desire that we think is also in or of God's spirit has deceived us from within our own selves.  This information is needed by us before we can walk without a log in our eye.

Gal 5:14  For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Gal 5:15  But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

Gal 5:18  But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Gal 5:19  Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Gal 5:20  Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Gal 5:21  Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Gal 5:24  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
Gal 5:25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Gal 5:26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

So, murder is one of the things that are not of God.  Think about that.  Wrath is not of the Spirit of God or a desire of the Spirit, etc.
Thanks, donken