The Christmas Mindset: Cultivating the Mindset of Jesus Among the Body

Today will likely be my last writing before Christmas, and so, among the parties I’m preparing for (pray for me, Michaelene, and our helper, Darwin as we navigate 15 boys between the ages 8 and 18!), visiting church members, and a slew of other things today, I was thinking about what Jesus did for us. Paul says:

“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, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

Wow! Christ, who is God, left heaven, humbling himself and being born of a virgin, was obedient in every way, and laid His life down for obedience! And why? Because He Submitted to the Father in all things, and He loved us so much that, in order to give us the chance for reconciliation to Himself, lived the life we could not, and died the death we deserved, paying our debts that sin incurred. In rising from the Grave, He conquered our consequence, which is death. He loved and served in His time on earth, and emptied Himself. All for us.

If this is what Christ did for us, how should we respond? In gratitude! Not as the world does, with words, or gifts, but by action. We should live a life as best we’re able emulating the example Christ has given us. We should love, serve, and die for one another. We should submit to the Father, and, as Ephesians tells us (5:21) to one another. Our lives should demonstrate our gratitude and love for the God who held nothing back from us, not even the life of His own Son, and for the Son who left worship to become one of us, lived perfectly according to all He commanded since the beginning, and died, bringing us reconciliation through His blood. Let our lives, this Christmas and every day, reflect the gratitude Jesus deserves, love and mercy He has shown, and service He still gives us as our faithful King and High Priest!

Romans 8:1-11

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.