We have the potential here and now to be more like God’s Son, as we demonstrate that we ‘have the mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2:16).
How it must delight the heart of God to see in the lives of Christians more and more characteristics of ‘the Son of His love’ (Colossians 1:13, RV)!
The sad reality, however, is that it is easier to regress than progress in Christ-likeness. Realising this maybe more than most, Peter advises us to ‘arm yourselves also with the same mind’ (1 Peter 4:1). How essential it is to utilise our minds as a defence weapon, ‘that we no longer should live the rest of our time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God’ (1 Peter 4:2). What sweet release it will be when the ‘Captain of our salvation’ (Hebrews 2:10) liberates us from this seemingly interminable ‘war against the soul’ (1 Peter 2:11)!
When ‘we shall be changed’ (1 Corinthians 15:52) into His likeness at His coming again for His own, we shall enjoy the impregnability to sin He possesses. The transformation will not merely be physical. It will be comprehensive, affecting all parts of our being: material, mental and spiritual. Never again will we be prone to unguarded lapses. The hymnist captures something of this:
Show me thy face – and I shall be
In heart and mind renewed,
With wisdom, grace and energy
To work thy work, endued
And nothing here have power to move
My soul’s serenity
The fretting ghosts of vain regret
Shall haunt my soul no more.
We can hardly conceive the bliss of being free from the blight of sin. Only then will we be fully and gladly compliant with ‘the first commandment ... you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind’ (Mark 12:30).