A Carnal Mind and the Mind of Christ Inside

Romans 8:7: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”

Every born-again believer has a carnal mind and the mind of Christ. In that scripture, Paul was talking to the believers in Rome, not sinners. This carnal mind is against everything that is of God because it cannot comprehend the ways of God. It was developed to compute the things of this world; therefore, when it sees the things of the Spirit, it tries to understand them just as it does the things of the world, but spiritual things are discerned spiritually.

This mind, however, can be taught the things of God just as it was taught the things of the world. The carnal mind has been taught for so many years how to interact with the physical world; in the same way, we can train it about the things of God. Paul calls us to renew our minds (Romans 12:2: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”). Through repetition and meditation of the word of God the carnal mind can learn and appreciate the things of the Spirit, and when this happens, you start having two worldviews: the worldview which is, by default, discerned quickly by the carnal mind, and the mind of Christ developed out of receiving and meditating on the word of God.

A Christian’s carnal mind is shaped by the default worldview and what it listens to over and over in church gatherings, devotions or sermons; it picks that up as the truth. Unfortunately, in Christianity, we have so many catchy phrases that are repeated so many times to the point that many Christians start to believe them more than the written word. These phrases start becoming the gospel in their minds and beliefs, and they shape their supposedly renewed mind. But I have realized that if the devil can’t fool you with worldly things, he will give you twisted scriptures wrapped in trendy phrases and sentences that are easy to grasp and memorize, which are purely diluted with the purpose of stealing from you what you could have received from the whole counsel of God—which could save you from any danger life throws at you at any given moment in life.

For example, when you fellowship in a grace-preaching environment over and over, you tend to think that everything is done by grace and through grace alone. I have attended church services where the host of the service and the preacher of the day say things like, “We have been saved by grace and through grace alone!” This is not a scripture; it sounds like one and portrays a humble and surrendered spirit, but it is just a catchy phrase popular in Christianity.

To get things into perspective, we have not been saved by grace alone; rather, as the Bible says in the book of Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” The book of Hebrews says in the 11th chapter, the 6th verse: “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” So, why do Christians allow themselves to believe that everything is grace and grace alone without faith? You know the truth of what happened when you got saved! Indeed, you have been saved by the grace of God, but it required your faith to believe and receive it.

God’s will is that all should be saved; the word of God was preached over and over until you accepted and took action to receive it in your heart. That’s what Paul talked about: being saved by grace through faith. When you take faith out of it, then you have trouble because now people will think that you get born again when God wants and when it is your appointed time, and so forth; yet, God wants everyone to be saved! You see, friends, we need to be aware of the devil’s tactics and make sure that what we believe is the absolute written word from God, not just popular phrases.

Now, I have said all the above to bring this point home: there is a tendency to believe things that look like they are from God but, in reality, are from the devil, given to the church through false teachers and multiplied by innocent preachers who fail to do the very thing Paul encouraged a young preacher he was mentoring- Timothy, to do—which is to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV). These preachers have been caught up in the wind of wrongly dividing the word of God.

Sometimes, we do not need extra help from the devil to wrongly divide or misunderstand the word of God; our carnal minds do it perfectly, better than the devil ever could! Because every born-again person possesses two minds: a carnal mind that is full of life experiences, the ways of this world, and personal beliefs, and the mind of Christ—which is the mind of God. To a born-again believer who is always about grace—grace here, grace there, everywhere grace, grace…—he thinks that the fact that he possesses the mind of Christ means he is always thinking right. No! That’s not so! Because he possesses his carnal mind too! You need to put the mind of Christ to work because if you don’t, the default is that the carnal mind is always activated.

And this is how you know that you are operating using your carnal mind instead of the mind of Christ: when you see what the word of God says, but still, you then say, “…but this is what I believe…” or something like that, and you go on to say things other than what you are seeing in the word of God. Be careful because you need to humble yourself first and admit that you didn’t know or didn’t have enough of the word of God about what you are seeing in the word that is causing your carnal mind to take over. After that, you ask the Holy Spirit to reconcile what you have been believing and what you see in the word of God, allowing the Holy Spirit to remove what needs to be removed and to establish what is the truth from God.

And the very first step to put the mind of Christ to work is to accept the word of God as the first and final authority in your life. Once you do that, the Holy Spirit can now start connecting scriptures to help you understand what your carnal mind could not. The danger is that, most of the time, to someone who knows the scriptures or thinks he is mature and have experience in the things of God, when his carnal mind is at work, it gives impressions as if it is the Holy Spirit connecting the dots, but in the end, what the person gets out of it all are faithless opinions which can’t get any results in his life supernaturally.

If your opinions and beliefs can’t get you results supernaturally, then they are not of Christ.

Shalom.