by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Gifted with the Mind of Christ

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

We have all felt like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, singing the song, “If I only had a brain.” We made a choice that never passed through the gray matter upstairs. We said something that was not checked by our brain. And we paid the consequences for lacking brains.

When Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, he’s only two-years old. A seasoned crow told him that he needed brains if he wanted to scare away his companions from the corn. You see, the crows had learned that the Scarecrow was only made of straw and couldn’t keep them from eating the corn.

His only hope was the Great Wizard of Oz. He could give him a brain.

“The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 2:15-16 New International Version

We have something greater than a wizard giving us brains, we have been given the mind of Christ. In reality, the Wizard of Oz didn’t give anything to the Scarecrow that he didn’t already have. In the journey to Oz, he displayed his wisdom, yet he still believed he needed someone to give him a brain.

We do not naturally possess the mind of Christ, in fact, by nature our minds are bent on thinking the opposite of Christ. It is through the mercy of our God and the gift of the Spirit that we have received the mind of Christ.

So, how did Christ think? I could give you my over-forty-years-of-pastoring answer, but that wouldn’t be fair to you. The way to know the mind of Christ is to read and experience it for yourself in the Gospels, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To know the Gospels is to know the mind of Christ with which we have been gifted.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado