Love Is A Choice
By Tammy Lacock
In this week’s podcast, Warren continues to emphasize, through Paul’s epistles, the importance of now having a radical mind-change as a believer in Christ. Through knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and revelation (words that deal with the spiritual growth of the mind), Paul says we must “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). If we are ever to live our new lives completely in Christ, “that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2), living who God created us to be, our minds must turn from focusing on outer things, the things of this world, to Christ within us, our new life.
Warren reminds us of the knowledge and understanding Paul gives us in 1 Thessalonians that we are a tripartite being, made in the image and likeness of God. We are soul, body, and spirit.
When we’re saved, we are saved in our spirits. This is where Christ is now joined to us, making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). We are perfect in our spirits because of Christ, the Son who pleases the Father. His death, burial, and resurrection was a perfect atonement for the curse of Adam by Satan passed down through the generations. In our rebirth, God uprooted our sin-nature and replaced it with His Son’s nature, the Seed of Christ, in our spirits. However, our souls, where our minds reside, have a lot of catching up to do. The radical change that took place in our spirits has yet to happen in our souls, where God is still working in our mind, will, and emotions, the part of us still growing in the revelation of the wisdom and understanding of Christ.
Most Christians have no idea that Christ now lives in us, so their minds are still under subjection to their old life. What good is our life here if we have Christ in us but have no understanding of it? Paul says, now that our new life is Christ, our minds must now undergo a radical mind-change in our understanding of this new life. And he tells us we are not left alone in this task. The Holy Spirit’s sole purpose is to teach us the things of Christ and comfort us in our new life in Christ. The Holy Spirit works in our minds to reveal Christ so that our souls come under subjection to our new life in Him in our spirits.
Mind-renewal — the journey of the believer’s mind which had been usurped by Satan since the curse of Adam — gives the mind over to the Christ now alive within. Paul says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
Ultimately, the constant renewal of our minds will lead us into a deeper and deeper relationship with Christ. This is spiritual growth, the only growth that truly matters. Paul was the greatest psychologist of all time because, by revelation from Christ, he understood that our minds have been held captive for so long, making choices contrary to our creation. If there was any chance for us to know and love Christ and live our new life in Him, we would need a radical mind-change, a mind-change that helps us see that all God really wants from us is a personal relationship and reciprocal love. He wants us to use the free will He gave us to ultimately choose Him. So life is a schoolhouse, where the circumstances and situations, and moreover the crises, are meant to draw us inward to Him. No longer to the outer world, and even the outer Christ of miracles and wonders, but to the resurrected Christ who, by His death, now literally lives eternally in every believer.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 KJV)
All He wants in return is for us to love Him back. Love is not an emotion; it is a choice. With Christ as our new life, isn’t it time to get to know Him? And isn’t it finally time to give our minds over to Him, to choose Him? Once we dive into Paul’s epistles and ask the Holy Spirit to continually renew our minds to the Christ within us, we will find that the choice to love Him is the greatest choice of all.
