The Mind: The Battleground of the Christian Life
The greatest warfare facing the believer is not external but internal, not against flesh and blood, but against the thoughts and dispositions that govern the soul. The mind, in scripture, is not simply an intellectual organ but the command center of the Christian life. What the mind permits, the life permits. What the mind refuses, the life refuses.
This is not sentimentalism, nor is it mystical abstraction. It is observable truth, as solid as gravity. A man’s thoughts determine his actions; his mental dispositions shape his character; his willingness to permit a specific quality of mind to govern his inner life determines whether he experiences victory or defeat in the Christian life.
The apostle Paul understood this with penetrating clarity. Writing to the Philippians from his Roman imprisonment, he does not offer them motivational platitudes or abstract theological comfort. Instead, he presents them with a demand, a summons to permit a specific quality of mind to govern their lives: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). The verb is crucial. Paul does not say the mind of Christ will be placed in you through some mystical transaction. He calls you to let it be in you. The Christian is the agent; the permission is the action.
The Consolations That Enable Letting
Paul begins with a remarkable gesture. Before he commands, he reminds. “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy” (Philippians 2:1-2). The structure of his argument is essential: consolation precedes command. Grace undergirds the demand to let.
This is crucial for understanding the Christian mind rightly. We do not achieve a transformed mind to earn favor; we receive the capacity to permit transformation because we have already received favor. We do not reshape our minds to merit God’s love; we reshape our minds because His love has already been extended to us in Christ.
What consolations Paul lists are not conditional possibilities but present realities: the comfort of redemption in Christ, the genuine affection of God’s love, the mysterious fellowship of the Holy Spirit operating within the believer, the tender compassions that mark a God who cares for His people. These are not abstract doctrinal positions; they are relational realities that the Christian has already experienced.
Yet Paul uses these consolations as the foundation for his demand. In effect, he says: “Given what you have already received, given the wealth of grace already poured out upon you, the only appropriate response is to let yourself think differently. Let your mind be governed by a quality foreign to your natural instincts. Permit the mind of Christ to occupy the throne room of your thinking.”
The Mind That Must Be Let In
What is this mind that Paul calls us to permit? He does not describe it in abstract terms. He reveals it through the figure of Christ Himself.
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).
Here is the mind we are instructed to let govern our thinking: a mind marked by the willingness to relinquish prerogative, to surrender reputation, to embrace servanthood, to obey even unto death. This is not a mind that calculates advantage or guards status. It is a mind that releases claim, that considers others, that moves toward sacrifice without resistance.
Notice what this mind refuses to do. Christ “thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” That phrase invites meditation. Christ did not regard His divine rights as something to be grasped at, clutched, defended, or leveraged. He possessed everything rightfully due to Him, and He willingly set it aside. The natural human mind grasps; the mind of Christ releases.
He “made himself of no reputation.” The natural mind constructs reputation carefully, protects it jealously, mourns its loss acutely. Christ voluntarily stripped Himself of the very thing the carnal mind spends its energy acquiring. He took upon Himself the form of a servant, not a leader, not a dignitary, not one whose interests were considered first, but one whose role was to serve the interests of others.
And most radically: “he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Here is a mind utterly alien to the unregenerate human consciousness. It is willing to obey, even to obey unto the execution reserved for slaves and criminals. The mind of Christ does not negotiate the terms of obedience; it does not resist what seems unjust; it does not marshal arguments in its own defense.
The Battle: Permitting This Mind to Govern
The battleground is precisely here, in the Christian’s permission or refusal to let this quality of mind govern his thinking.
The natural mind is a jealous thing. It clings to its prerogatives, defends its status, calculates how to advance its interests. It is not evil to possess such a mind; it is simply human. But it is precisely this mind that must be displaced, overruled, subordinated to another.
When Paul says “Let this mind be in you,” he is calling the Christian to engage in an act of deliberate mental mutiny. The old mind, the one shaped by self-interest, self-protection, self-promotion, must be deposed from the throne room. The new mind, the one shaped by Christ’s pattern of release, service, and obedience, must be invited to rule.
This requires recognition. The Christian must see, with clear eyes, the difference between the two. He must observe his natural inclination to defend himself, to advance his interests, to calculate advantage, and recognize it for what it is: the mind he was born with, not the mind he is called to permit. He must identify the impulse toward grasping and name it. He must feel the instinct toward self-promotion and distinguish it from the mind of Christ.
Then comes the harder part: permission. The Christian must actively allow the mind of Christ to govern his thinking in the specific moment when his natural mind rebels. When he is slighted, the carnal mind surges toward resentment; he must permit the mind of Christ to occupy that space instead, releasing the offense. When his reputation is threatened, the natural mind mobilizes defenses; he must let the mind that “made himself of no reputation” govern his response. When an opportunity for self-advance appears, the carnal mind grasps; he must permit the mind of Christ to release.
This is not passive. It is active resistance to one mind in favor of another. It is daily, perhaps hourly, choosing which mind will govern his thinking in any given moment.
The Consolation That Sustains Permission
What makes this permission possible is the consolations that Paul placed at the beginning. The Christian is not asked to permit a mind that leads to loss and diminishment. He is not called to embrace the mind of Christ and discover himself destroyed.
The very opposite occurs. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
Christ’s voluntary descent did not end in perpetual loss. It ended in exaltation. His willingness to relinquish prerogative was rewarded with supreme honor. His obedience unto death was followed by resurrection and universal recognition of His lordship.
This is the consolation that permits the Christian to let the mind of Christ govern his own thinking. It is not blind faith in an abstract principle. It is the observed pattern of Christ Himself: the mind that releases is ultimately exalted; the mind that obeys is ultimately vindicated; the mind that serves is ultimately honored.
The Christian who permits this mind to govern his thinking does so with the memory of Christ’s experience before him. He thinks differently because he has seen, in Christ, where such thinking leads, not to diminishment, but to the glory of God and the exaltation of His name throughout all creation.
The Daily Permission
This, then, is the battleground of the Christian life: not external circumstances, but the moment-by-moment permission or refusal to let the mind of Christ govern one’s thinking.
It begins in the consolations, the settled knowledge that one has already been extended grace in Christ, that the Holy Spirit dwells within, that the compassions of God are genuine. From this foundation, the Christian faces the daily opportunity: Will I permit the old mind to govern this thought, this response, this defense? Or will I let the mind of Christ, the mind that releases, that serves, that obeys, occupy this space instead?
The battle is won in that permission. It is lost in that refusal. And the stakes are the entire character of one’s Christian life.
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” The invitation and the demand stand before every believer, not as an impossible standard, but as a consolation-sustained possibility, a mind available for letting, a victory available for willing.
Pastor Thomas IrvinÂ
George County Baptist Church
Lucedale, MississippiÂ
