Last weeks and this weeks message are Christianity 101.  They are foundational to understanding the gospel & what its all about.  The scriptures are like a pieces of a puzzle.  You have to be able to peace them together properly in order to see the picture they are painting.  

Last week we looked at the carnal mind and what happened to mankind through Adam.  By the disobedience of Adam sin found an opportunity to manifest death in our flesh.  That gave birth to the carnal mind.  The deadness we saw in ourselves and all around us darkened our understanding.  It made the eye of our understanding sick.  Example of oral traditions about Adam and Eve and darkness.  

We can have some pretty bad fog in Louisiana.  Theres been times when I’ve driven over the twin span and the fog was so thick I couldnt even see 5 ft in front of me.  The fog was so thick I was blinded to the cars in front of me even though they had their lights on.  

The death that entered the earth through Adam was as a thick fog of darkness to us.  It blinded us to the truth that God was with us to cloth upon our body of death with the life of his lamb.  That left us standing in the condemnation of death, where we were all the time sowing the strength contained in our hands, trying to decorate our body of death with the fruit of God’s life. 

We were trying to know God through the strength of the flesh.  We were trying to know the peace and the love and the joy of God through being strong according to the flesh, wise according to the flesh, and noble according to the flesh.  But, we were never able to cloth upon ourselves with life, and we were always bearing more fruit unto death.

So there we were in the midst of death.  Blind to the goodness in God’s heart; thinking the death we saw all around us was a sign God abhorred us in our affliction; thinking His face was hid from us; and thinking He wouldn’t hear us if we cried out to Him.  Not knowing that even should we make our bed in the grave, in the degradation of sin, God is there with us, desiring to be good to us.  And lo and behold A Great Light shined in our midst.  

Isa 9:2  says The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. 

2Co 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 

Joh 1:4  says In Jesus was life; and the life was the light of men. 

A great light has shined in the midst of the people walking in the valley shadowed by death.  The life of God manifested in the man Jesus, having overcome death in his flesh, clothing him in a body that can never taste death or weakness again.  Though we were blinded by the darkness of death in the earth we can see God clearly now.  

The apostle Paul says in his first letter to Timothy, God is the only one possessing immortality in and of Himself.  If this man Jesus, whom we saw having the fulness of sin and death manifest in his flesh, has now come out of the grave possessing immortality in his body.  It means something.  It means that it came from the Father of Lights in heaven.  If this man Jesus is now possessing the life of the Father in heaven.   It means God is with us to condemn the death that was working condemnation in us.  It means God is with us to war against the death that was warring against us.  

1st John speaking about the life that manifested in the body of Jesus’ resurrection says what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God.  If God manifested the glory of His immortality in the body of the man Jesus it means we aren’t orphans in the earth needing to justify ourselves with life.  It means Gods desire us unto us.  It means God is with us to Father His life in us.

Jesus didnt judge people according to the deadness he saw in them.  He didnt come to chastise them over the fruit of death he saw in their lives.  He came to take an axe to the root of the carnal mind.  The life that consumed death in the body of Jesus’ resurrection, takes an axe to the death that is the root of the carnal mind.  

The apostle Paul says in 1st Cor 2 we have the mind of Christ

Just as death gave birth to the carnal mind in the earth.  The life of God, the life that manifested in the body of Jesus’ resurrection, having overcome death in the flesh, gave birth to the mind of Christ in the earth.  

The mind of Christ is a mind thats born from the life that manifested in Jesus.  Its a mind that reasons from the life that manifested in Christ.  All its thoughts and conclusions about God and what is in His heart towards all people is built upon the fact that the Father of Lights manifested His life in the man Jesus when the fulness of the curse and sin and death was come upon him.  

The mind of Christ is a mind that isnt fixed on the deadness it sees in itself or in the world but it considers the life that is in God, that manifested in the body of Jesus’ resurrection.  Whereas the carnal mind reasons from the deadness it sees and judges GOD has abandoned mankind in their affliction.  The mind of Christ reasons from the life that manifested in Christ and judges God is there preparing a table that is full of His life.  

If we look at Jesus on the cross, He didnt consider the deadness He saw in his body he considered the goodness in the Father’s heart towards him, and the life He shared with the Father from the beginning.  

Jesus didnt have the carnal mind on the cross, he had the mind that was born from the Spirit of Life.  Jesus didnt build his understanding about himself and the Fathers thoughts towards him by the sin and death he saw in himself on the cross.  He didnt discern himself or the Father through the sin and death he saw.  Rather he discerned the sin and death he saw in himself by the Father’s love for him and the Spirit of Life they shared.  And because of that Jesus saw the Father was with him, to be good to him, to condemn the death that was manifesting in his flesh, even though his bed was made with death, and He cried out to the Father instead of hiding from the father and trying to cloth himself like the first man adam.  

We’re supposed to see ourselves and our lives discerned in the face of Jesus.  We’re supposed to see our lives from the outside looking in.  Jesus didnt have his own sin on the cross.  He had our sin and our death.  They we are on the cross dead in our sin.  The carnal mind looks at the deadness and says we are smitten and stricken of God.  The carnal mind says where’s your God now.  The carnal mind says God has forsaken you because of the sin that is manifesting in your life.

In John 9:39 Jesus says, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not, might see; and that they which see, might be made blind.  

The sight Jesus is talking about is pertaining to the eye of our understanding.  The Pharisees just said God condemns the woman caught in the act of adultery.  They thought they could see.  They thought they saw God.  The death in the world painted a picture of God.  The death in the world painted a picture of God accusing and condemning sinners.  We thought we could see God but we were blind because the carnal mind cannot perceive God.  The life that manifested in Jesus revealed our blindness and gave us eyes to see the truth about God.

We see the life that manifested in Jesus, and our sight is restored.  We have the mind of Christ.  Our imagination is no longer captivated with the deadness we see in this world, it’s captivated with the life that overcame death in the body of Jesus’ resurrection.  When we see deadness in the world and in our bodies we have eyes to see God with us condemning the death by the power of His indestructible life.  We are after the likeness of what Paul says of Abraham in romans 4.  We no longer consider the deadness we see in ourselves but we consider the glory of God. 

We are a people after God’s own heart.  We are a people who have seen into the heart of God and seen it is filled with tenderness towards us.  The words of the psalmist are born in our hearts.  Yea though i walk through the valley shadowed by death, fear has been far removed from me.  I can see clearly now the death is gone.  My sight has been restored.  The Father is the shepherd and bishop of my life, I lack no good thing.  I see the grace in Gods hand exalts my life above the death in this world and that brought stillness to my heart.  I see God prepares a table for me, filled with the bread of His life, and that quiets the storms of this world.  I see God taking vengeance on the death that was warring against me and that comforts me.  

As Paul says in Romans 8 nothing can separate me from the love of God.  Paul’s explaining what it is to have the mind of Christ.  He says death can no longer blind me to the Father’s love.  How can the death in the world work condemnation in me.  How can the peril and the sword and the famine and shipwreck tell me God isnt with me, or that He has left me as a lamb being led away to the slaughter.  I see God has drawn near to me and condemned the body of death that was condemning me, in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  How can the deadness continue to tell me God isnt with me.  I see Jesus and I see God with me serving me with His life.  

Death isnt a figment of the imagination.  Its very real & needed to be overcome in our bodies.  Its not a gnostic gospel we are believing in, where we say the only problem is in our heads.  Yes what we believed was a problem, but what we believed came from a death that is very real and needed to be physically conquered in our bodies.  

The only way we can be set free from the death and condemnation that comes from the carnal mind is if we can see the death the carnal mind reasons from overcome in the flesh of Jesus by God’s life.  That will destroy the reasoning and thoughts of the carnal mind, and will save us from the condemnation the death in the world tries to serve us with.  

Prayer