What is “The Mind of Christ?

"She felt her way through her deep thoughts, 

guided by a grief-awakened inner light, 

she saw things about humanity that transcend time and space."

This sentence is poetic language describing how Simone Weil came to wisdom.

It suggests she did not arrive at insight merely through cold logic or academic analysis. 

She “felt her way through her deep thoughts” which means she thought with the whole person—

mind, 

conscience, 

compassion, 

and lived sensitivity. 

She explored truth carefully, almost by touch, through reflection and inward honesty.

“Guided by a grief-awakened inner light” means 

suffering or sorrow had awakened something in her: 

moral clarity, 

tenderness, 

seriousness, 

spiritual perception

In short, Christ likeness. 

Grief often strips away illusions. 

It can make a person less impressed by status, power, and superficial success, 

and more able to recognize pain, injustice, and what truly matters.

“Inner light” which I take to mean the “mind of Christ,” 

refers to conscience, 

insight, or our spiritual faculty 

that helps one perceive truth beyond appearances.

Finally, “she saw things about humanity that transcend time and space” 

That means her observations were not limited to one era, country, or circumstance. 

“Go into all the world.”  As Jesus said. 

She understood patterns of human nature that remain true across generations: 

power and oppression, 

suffering and dignity, 

blindness and compassion, 

ego and grace.

In simpler words: Because suffering deepened her heart and sharpened her conscience, Simone Weil was able to understand enduring truths about what human beings are really like and feel.

All through the gospels Jesus makes care for the poor, oppressed, downtrodden and suffering central to following Him, it is tied to 

eternal reward, 

judgment, 

and imitating His own mission.

 

The “least of these” in Matthew 25 is especially broad, covering 

physical poverty, 

imprisonment (oppression), 

illness, 

and social exclusion.

 Jesus lived this out by eating with outcasts, healing the marginalized, and giving His life for the downtrodden.

Jesus began winning my heart by speaking to me through a secular song.

I was married as a teen and we were both very immature and had not one tool in our box to make a marriage work. It was the late sixties and the temptations were high, the times were rebellious and the popular slogan of the time was, "God is dead."

I assure you He was not dead, and the largest revival the world ever saw was during the late sixties and early seventies where a world wide revival swept through like a might wind.

I see signs of it now, and I pray it grows midst, what in some ways,

are the darkest of times.

I'll paste the link to the song that began my salvation experience.

He used this song to open my heart and that very night I picked up a Bible and began reading about Jesus.

The Holy Spirit fell with such force I found Him irresistible,

long before I knew what the Holy Spirit was!

That experience taught me the truth of the following quote --

"In all churches individuals are better than their denomination, creed, or doctrines, and amidst gross error and indoctrination,

which is often of a very narrow spirit,

noble virtues spring up, and eminent Christians are formed.

God always looks for a seeking spirit,

and even in the midst of many errors,

His truth will penetrate the heart. "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4WGPxg9jPQ&list=RDs4

"Someone says, “I have a rebellious heart and an unholy life. When I look honestly at myself, I get totally discouraged. I know temptation and feeling abandoned by God are bad enough, but if my heart and my daily life were truly good, I wouldn’t feel this way. Yet I keep committing serious sins—so don’t I have every reason to be discouraged?”

No. Discouragement itself is a sin—a “gospel sin.” Your failures under the law are never a good excuse to break the gospel by losing heart. Yes, every sin is far worse than any suffering or punishment. Hardships are only the first scratch of sin’s claws. But here’s the truth that changes everything: even though the sins of God’s people dishonor the Holy Spirit, wound the name of Jesus, and damage the reputation of the gospel, believers still have zero reason to stay discouraged. Why?

Because you will never be condemned for your sin—no matter how great it is. The Bible is clear: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Christ was made sin for you. If He took your sin on Himself, that sin can never destroy you. God’s justice will not make you pay a debt twice. Jesus wasn’t just arrested for your debt—He was locked up and paid it in full, to the very last penny. He paid it better than you ever could have, even if you had gone to hell yourself. The bill is settled. The case is closed. So stop letting your sins talk you into despair. Christ has already handled them completely."

William Bridge, "A lifting up for the downcast" 1600s.

 “We all long to have our “youth renewed like an eagle’s.”

At first glance, the surest path to happiness seems simple: hold on to that carefree childhood zest, when everything felt fresh, exciting, and full of wonder. A lucky few, bursting with vitality, manage to keep that spark alive their whole lives.

I remember a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson telling me this story. Stevenson was alone in London, and about to set off on a lonely sea voyage.

He dropped in on his friend, who was also packing for a trip the next day and had to rummage through the junk-filled attic for his trunks.

Stevenson begged to come along.

There, perched on a broken chair amid the dusty clutter, he spun an entire wonderful romance out of the random stuff lying around.

That kind of eager, childlike freshness is something most of us lose as we grow older.

Instead, we’re left fighting off weariness and drudgery, trying not to become just tired commuters plodding through our endless to-do lists and burdens.

The real question is: can we find some kind of “medicine” for the soul—something that revives our fading sense of wonder, brings back the delight and untroubled zest we felt as children when everything new felt magical, and pushed back against the dullness and staleness of everyday adult life?”

Arthur C. Benson.

I love this little story and it brings so many thoughts to mind.

In Psalm 103 the Lord says -

"He satisfies your desires with good things

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s."

To live having our desires satisfied by "good things",

and not the evil bread of darkness, is one of God's greatest gifts to us.

 

It was "men's church" at the jail last night; about 18 guys showed, and over half were there at the last meeting, and one fella that looked vaguely familiar, and he told me he was in jail 12 years ago, and remembered me too. 

The one thing I know now, more than ever is, you can't read a person by their looks. Time and again, the meanest looking turn out to be the most gentle and the most open. 

The first fella to arrive, introduced himself as a street preacher, and I sensed the Holy Spirit in him but his mission seemed to be the unraveling of end times prophecy and he had a graph he's been working on and was itching to show it to me. I was rescued by the arriving men, and I prayed in the meeting. 

I preached on Matt. 6:22-23 "The eye is the lamp of the body." 

The presence of God hovered in and over the meeting, and every man's eye was on me: they were engaged! This is His power and His love that pours out, calling them to Himself: and I can tell you there is no place I'd rather be than in that rushing, surging tide of grace!  

Christ's words plumbed the depth of sin and His grace beamed with an almost irresistible glory. Believe me, you can feel it when the hearts relates, is convicted and is looking for mercy. 

Before I closed I made an appeal for prayer for any special needs, no one spoke up, so I began praying for every child the men have, every waiting spouse, every weeping parent and grandparent, and every lamenting sibling and loved one. This was the Holy Spirit's grandest entrance, almost like a "mighty wind." 

When I finished, one fella, that struck me as one of the most innocent, asked if I would pray for his wife, he then revealed that after he was incarcerated she fell into depression, and then, on top of all the upheaval, her beloved dog died, and ultimately she relapsed, and is now out selling herself on the streets to feed her Fentanyl habit. I was stunned. He wasn't angry, no jealousy or shame, no nothing, his only thought was for her safety, he just wanted God to protect her. 

The world of darkness can reduce us in ways we never imagined; and it's depth of evil is beyond calculation; only satisfied when we forfeit our souls. 

 

 

At times, when sorrow weighs us down or a hard duty rises before us, we still find enough light within to pray with a lifted heart. In that quiet surrender, God seems near—gathering us into a vast deliverance. The soul turns inward and sees His light; it reaches outward and feels His strength.

Then we step over fear and labor with a new resolve. Even sorrow is transfigured—its clouds glowing with a solemn beauty, like a sky lit from within. They hang above us not as threats, but as a sheltering fire, or as the high mountains of another world—terrible, yet strangely a place we could remain, even beneath the rumble of what we cannot escape.

What once loomed so large to our anxious sight shrinks into smallness before a wider vision. Troubles that felt like floods become as dew upon the grass. The world itself, with all its noise and striving, seems a quiet sphere, drifting in the depths of heaven.

Such moments come to every tested and faithful soul. They hold more true life than years spent in routine and striving. They become our inner landmarks—steady lights that remain long after, reminding us how deeply our spirit shapes what we see above us.

We romanticize the past because fear has been stripped away from it.

We spoil the present because fear still clouds it.

The tragedy is that life keeps proving we can survive the worst—

yet we cannot stop fearing the next thing.

Understanding why fear is part of our story might be the key to wisdom itself.

That's the point of the following quote by Arthur C. Benson ---

"After living a full life—seeing much, enjoying much, and enduring much—a person often looks back and feels a quiet dissatisfaction.

Their days weren’t ruined, but they were always slightly shadowed by the sense that happiness was never quite as pure as they had hope.

So they turn their thoughts to the old scenes of love and companionship.

They call up memories from the darkness, like flipping through an old photo album, and gently retouch them.

They remove the worries, the disappointments, and especially the fears—transforming the past not into what it actually was,

but into what it might have been: warmer, softer, more golden.

Thomas Carlyle nailed it when he said the reason memories of the past always look so beautiful is because the fear has been taken out of them.

It is fear of what may happen and what must eventually happen that overshadows our present happiness.

Remove fear, and we would be truly happy.

Yet here’s the strange paradox: even though we’ve survived our darkest and saddest experiences completely unscathed,

we never seem to learn not to be afraid.

If we could only understand why fear is woven so deeply into human life,

we would have solved a great part of the riddle of the world."

It's no mystery why the Bible says "Fear not" near 365 times.

“He took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her; and she ministered unto them.” — Mark I: 31.

Mark had a very active mind, perhaps the most active of the four evangelists. He delights to record not words, but deeds. I do not think that any of the others, after telling of this woman’s cure, would have immediately added, “and she ministered unto them.” The sequel is not what we should expect. When an invalid rises from fever, we expect others to minister to her and help repair the ravages of disease. Matthew, after describing the healing of Jairus’s daughter, records Jesus’ command that “something should be given her to eat.” No doubt the time came when she, too, ministered to the household; but Matthew does not go on to say so. He leaves the scene at the bedside.

Is Mark, then, less sympathetic? Is it a lack of sentiment that makes him hasten to tell us how soon this woman was back at her work? No; I think it is the opposite. Mark sees that the great use of a temporary burden is the power it gives for human service. This is a side of suffering we seldom consider. We rarely think of sickness as preparation for deeper usefulness. But Mark does; to him, that is its glory. The woman raised from the bed of fever is not merely restored; she is enlarged. She is in a better state than if she had never been ill. The illness has become an enrichment. And her new spirit of service must have been to her friends as great a surprise, and as great a miracle, as her healing.

“Faith which works by love” Gal. 5:6

 “The amount of faith we place in others is quite out of proportion to our actual knowledge of them. 

You will see two girls, in the course of just a few hours, becoming mutual confidantes. 

Why is this? 

It is because they have taken a liking to one another. 

Their faith in each other has had nothing to build upon but love. 

There has not been time for experience. 

Love is the anticipator of experience. 

Love pays in advance; it gives the money before it receives the thing. 

Divine love is no exception. 

God pays humanity in advance for services not yet rendered; 

I suppose that is what the prophet means when he cries, 

“Behold! His reward is with Him and His work before Him!” 

Love gives its confidence in advance. It does not wait for proof. 

It does not linger for corroboration. It does not suspend its trust until its object is weighed in the balance. 

It surrenders its faith unpaid for.

My friend, let this be your faith in your fellow human! 

Do not wait until you have proven them! 

You look out upon the lapsed masses; you see no beauty to be desired in them. 

Will you then let them go? 

Is your faith to be dependent on sight? 

Not if you love. 

If you love your lapsed brother, you will hope all things for him. 

Love gives the benefit of the doubt to those who seem unpromising. 

Love imputes its own righteousness to those who are still in shadow. 

Love believes in tomorrow for those in a dark today. 

My friend, if you love, you will believe that all things are possible for humanity. 

Though as yet you see no rainbow, though as yet you hear no bells across the snow, though as yet there has come from the waters not even an olive branch of peace, still you will believe. 

Love itself shall be your rainbow; love itself shall be your bell of hope; love itself shall be your message from the flood. 

Humanity is still climbing the Dolorous Way—fainting beneath her crosses, groaning amid her thorns. 

Do not wait till she has conquered, do not wait till she is crowned! 

Go out to meet her in her climbing! Go out to greet her in her night! Go out to own her in her rags! 

Take up her bitter cross and call it yours! 

And if people say to you, “Why do you dare to hope for these withered leaves?” 

lay your hand upon your heart and say, “Love believes all things!”

George Matheson.