Reading the mind of God

God thinks at a level that is far from human understanding. However, He is willing to give us the tools to read your mind and start thinking as He thinks! 

"Because my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, said the Eternal. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts more than your thoughts ”(Isaiah 55: 8-9).

Can you imagine a conversation in the throne room of the universe? Can you imagine what it would be like to know what is on God's mind as He directs millions of angels and sustains billions of galaxies?

But God's mental powers are so vastly superior to ours that how could we even dare to imagine? Wouldn't it be something akin to a microscopic ant or amoeba - trying to understand the person who designed a skyscraper or built a rocket that took humans to the moon?

However, God has created us with the desire to learn and understand. We desire to make sense of our world, and this means that we long to understand the Creator's thoughts and plans.

We wonder, what does God think when disasters happen? What do you want me to learn from the tests I face? What does He want me to achieve? What is your purpose for my life?

Incredibly, the Bible tells us that God wants us to come to understand his thoughts, to read his mind — to really begin to think as He does.

Repair the gap

But there are great obstacles that we must overcome before we achieve that. Our sorry condition is far, far away from that goal.

God clearly identifies the gap that exists between our natural thoughts and their level of thought:

"Because my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, said the Eternal. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts more than your thoughts ”(Isaiah 55: 8-9).

The origin of the separation

Our first parents, Adam and Eve, had direct contact with God and were offered the possibility of accessing the tree of life. This tree symbolized the Holy Spirit, through whom God gives us understanding of his thoughts and the opportunity for eternal life.

But we are naturally limited, and our thinking tends to focus on temporal pleasures to the detriment of God's eternal perspective.

Adam and Eve demonstrated this by choosing the attractive fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This selfish, temporary way of thinking led them to ignore God's command. By taking the forbidden fruit, they began to build a barrier that further distanced them and their children from the mind of God.

The prophet of God, Isaiah, described the result of this dire choice:

": .. Your iniquities have made a division between you and your God, and your sins have hidden your face from you so as not to hear ... His feet run to evil, they rush to shed innocent blood; his thoughts, thoughts of iniquity; destruction and brokenness are in their ways. They did not know the way of peace, nor is there justice in their ways… We touch the wall like the blind, and we grope like without eyes ”(Isaiah 59: 2, 7-8, 10).

As we have tried to discover for ourselves what is good and what is bad, human beings have moved further and further away from the correct thinking that would lead to peace and justice. We have cut ourselves off from the mind of God.

Reading the Word of God

But God has not left humanity with no way of knowing what their way of thinking is. He has inspired the books of the Bible to reveal his mind.

The Bible tells us what God considers good and bad. He gave us food laws for our benefit (Deuteronomy 10: 12-13). He teaches us the way of peace and the way to salvation and eternal life.

The Bible is full of practical wisdom that can make life work as it is supposed to.

The Bible shows that God in his perfect wisdom has the plan to give us such a heart. He wants us to have a heart and mind like His — that we can really read his mind. But it turns out that even when we have access to the Bible, this is not enough to fully understand the heart and mind of God. After giving his Ten Mandamien cough the children of Israel, God lamented: "O that there were such a heart, that they would fear me , and keep every day all my commandments, that they and their children might be well forever ”! (Deuteronomy 5:29).  

The Bible shows us that in his perfect wisdom, God has a plan to give us such a heart. He wants us to have a heart and a mind like His — that we can really read his mind.

The eye has not seen

As incredible as the Bible is, God tells us that it contains many things that challenge us to understand. There were things that Jesus' disciples did not really understand until He gave them to them and added to their level of understanding through the gift of the Holy Ghost (John 16: 12-13).

The apostle Paul explained that, without the Spirit of God, we cannot really understand things beyond the human plane.

"Rather, as it is written, things that the eye has not seen, nor the ear has heard, nor have risen in the heart of man, are those that God has prepared for those who love him ... from God, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they must be spiritually discerned ”(1 Corinthians 2: 9, 14).

At the right time for each person, God's desire is to bring everyone to the knowledge of his truth and lead us to repentance — a change of mind. As the apostle Peter vehemently commanded those who were heartbroken and recognized their sins:

“Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit ”(Acts 2:38).

The Spirit of God provides us with the missing connection to God and gives us an understanding of his motivations and his way of thinking. God wants us to have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2: 5). He wants us to have the eternal, sensible, and balanced perspective that He has. He wants us to be motivated to act in the loving, right, beneficial way that He acts.

Your next step

Is God calling you to understand his written word, the Bible? Are you motivating Him to want to change, think, and act as He does? If so, we encourage you to act on this appeal now.