I WANT TO MIND HIM

Years ago, my youngest daughter accepted Jesus at the age of four.  To be certain that she understood, I asked her what that meant.  She replied, "I want to mind Him."  I cannot tell you how profound that is.  I have never heard an adult express in five words, what every genuinely born again believer feels at the moment of conversion.  We all want to please Him, and since He is our Lord, and should be submitted to as such, pleasing Him requires "minding Him."  The Apostle Peter described Christian growth which not only pleases God, but it can actually draw others to Christ.  He wrote: 

"Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:  grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:  whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 1:1-8). 

Notice the progression.  We are saved when we place our faith in the risen Son of God, but our transformation into His likeness, called sanctification, is a process of growth.  Believing in Jesus leads us to want to live a virtuous life; we want to please Him, and we do not want to cause others to reject Him.  That is the first requirement for pleasing Him.

Once we have made that commitment, we are to learn all we can about our Lord, what pleases Him, what He would have us do, and not do.  Knowledge of those things, coupled with determination, leads to temperance, to self-control.  Even though we fail, with each failure, we become more determined to conquer our old sin nature.  Gaining self-control takes time, it takes patience with oneself, and with others.  We need to recognize we begin with a new birth, and are babes in the beginning.  It is so easy to become discouraged and lose patience with ourselves.  That is pride; that is expecting that we should instantly be Christ-like.  That isn't the way it works.  Growth takes time.

When we realize we still have "miles to go before we sleep," we are seeing ourselves as God sees us; we are thinking like God, and that is the beginning of our godliness:  God-likeness.  God-likeness is characterized, not only in thinking like God, but in acting like God; God is love, and when we are like Him, we love.  We are kind to those we love.  We are especially kind to those He loves:  our enemies!

When these characteristics are seen in us by the lost world, then one of two things happens;  we are either hated with the same venomous hatred the world has for Christ, or we are loved with the same love God's children have for Him.  Either way, we have minded our Lord, and He is pleased with us.

Do you really want to please God?  Then mind Him!