Does having the mind of Christ mean that with the Holy Spirits help, our carnal minds have been transformed leaving behind the old mind of sin with its ungodly desires, its lust of the flesh and full of self-pride, strife or vainglory.

1 Corinthians 2:16
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

Philippians 2:5
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

1 Peter 4:1
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;



"...As the mind dwells upon Christ, the character is molded after the divine similitude....We contemplate His character, and thus He is in all our thoughts. His love encloses us....His image is imprinted upon the eye of the soul, and affects every portion of our daily life, softening and subduing our whole nature....We have become transformed in character; for heart, soul, mind, are irradiated by the reflection of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Here again there is the realization of a personal, living influence dwelling in our hearts by faith....Jesus is to us an abiding presence, controlling our thoughts and ideas and actions....Jesus Christ is everything to us-- the first, the last, the best in everything; it is the warp and woof, the very texture of our entire being. (MYP 159-161)

"...None need fail of attaining, in his sphere, to perfection of Christian character. By the sacrifice of Christ, provision has been made for the believer to receive all things that pertain to life and godliness. God calls upon us to reach the standard of perfection and places before us the example of Christ's character. In His humanity, perfected by a life of constant resistance of evil, the Savious showed that through cooperation with Divinity, human beings may in this life attain to perfection of character. This is God's assurance to us that we, too, may obtain complete victory....The holiness that God's Word declares he must have before he can be saved is the result of the working of divine grace as he bows in submission to the discipline and restraining influences of the Spirit of truth. Man's obedience can be made perfect only by the incense of Christ's righteousness, which fills with divine fragrance every act of obedience. The part of the Christian is to persevere in overcoming every fault....Glorious is the hope before the believer as he advances by faith toward the heights of Christian perfection. (AA 530-533)

I believe that having the mind of Christ is having Christ dwelling in us which is describe in the Bible as the "Mystery of God" which is another word for describing the "born again" phenomena.

EGW describe the born again in COL 98 as this
The "New thoughts, new feelings, new motives, are implanted." mentioned, I believe are Christ's thoughts, Christ's feelings, Christ's motives that are implanted. This is the only way we can have the mind of Christ, is by having Christ living or dwelling in us.

People who experience the miracle of rebirth are born again with a new mind, a new heart, and a new nature. God implants within them all the righteous fruits and attributes of His character. Not one is missing. They begin at rebirth where Jesus began at birth. They are born again equipped as Jesus was equipped. That is, they possess all the hardware needful to imitate His sinless example of godly living. By abiding in Jesus, by walking in the Spirit and mind of the new man, by partaking of the divine nature - they are empowered to be like Jesus, to grow in grace and to mature in the fruits of the Spirit. This is what it means to have the mind of Christ! Ellen White confirms this description:

Jesus continued: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." By nature the heart is evil, and "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." Job 14:4. No human invention can find a remedy for the sinning soul. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Rom. 8:7; Matt. 15:19. The fountain of the heart must be purified before the streams can become pure. He who is trying to reach heaven by his own works in keeping the law is attempting an impossibility. There is no safety for one who has merely a legal religion, a form of godliness. The Christian's life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation of nature. There is a death to self and sin, and a new life altogether. This change can be brought about only by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. {DA 172.1}

The life of the vine will be manifest in fragrant fruit on the branches. "He that abideth in Me," said Jesus, "and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing." When we live by faith on the Son of God, the fruits of the Spirit will be seen in our lives; not one will be missing. {DA 676.4}

God will accept only those who are determined to aim high. He places every human agent under obligation to do his best. Moral perfection is required of all. Never should we lower the standard of righteousness in order to accommodate inherited or cultivated tendencies to wrong-doing. We need to understand that imperfection of character is sin. All righteous attributes of character dwell in God as a perfect, harmonious whole, and every one who receives Christ as a personal Saviour is privileged to possess these attributes. {COL 330.2}

Being free moral agents, our minds are OUR minds, free to think and reason.

In a discussion concerning a parable given by a well known speaker, in which he had mentioned that we invite Christ into the car and let Him drive, the question was raised, does Christ actually take the wheel and we sit back? Is that the way it is? Or is the Christian life one of submitting to Christ's instruction while we still have the responsibility of driving -- placing our will under His will?

Thus to have the mind of Christ would mean that we keep OUR minds focused on Him.
He gives us His wisdom; He is our wisdom. When we do not walk wisely, He nudges us with His wisdom, calling us back to His way. His wisdom guides us. His wisdom fills our mind and heart and leads us so we make the right choices.

But how does this occur?
We must study and learn what is the mind the Christ!
The Holy Spirit's presence must be sought to lead us into all truth.


Satan works in different ways to steal the mind off from God and get it focused on earthly things again.
How do we avoid this?

I think, above all, having the mind of Christ means to love as He loved.

This is a great question! I think a key thing to realize is that God loves us, and employs the Holy Spirit to guide and protect us. One of the things the Holy Spirit does is to lead us to do the thing you mentioned earlier in your post, which is to focus on Christ.



If the Spirit is constantly seeking to draw are attention to the cross, the only way we can not be focusing on Christ is to resist the Spirit. So I think the first step in avoiding into Satan's pitfalls, wherein he tries to distract our attentions from Christ, is to recognize that the Spirit is doing the opposite, and that in order to fall into Satan's trap we must resist the Spirit.

So, rule #1 is, Don't resist the Holy Spirit!

Dedication, yes, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, seated supremely upon the throne of our soul temple, empowering us to use our faculties of mind and body to reproduce the lovely character traits of Jesus. Ellen explains it very nicely:

"The Spirit of God does not propose to do our part, either in the willing or the doing. This is the work of the human agent in cooperating with the divine agencies. As soon as we incline our will to harmonize with God's will, the grace of Christ stands to cooperate with the human agent; but it will not be the substitute to do our work independent of our resolving and decidedly acting. Therefore it is not the abundance of light, and evidence piled upon evidence, that will convert the soul it is only the human agent accepting the light, arousing the energies of the will, realizing and acknowledging that which he knows is righteousness and truth, and thus cooperating with the heavenly ministrations appointed to God in the saving of the soul. {2MCP 691.3}

How do we avoid Satan's attempts to take our eyes off Jesus and place them on the world? There are many and wonderful things we can do, but I suspect the most important one is to spend time with Jesus as with a friend. By this I don't mean reading the Bible, which is, of course, one of the many ways we can and must safeguard our souls; instead, I mean actually spending time with Jesus. Talk to Him, listen to Him. Pour out our heart and soul to Him.

Having the mind of Christ is when you let the Spirit to lead your life, it is known as living by the Spirit which bear fruits of the Spirit.

Having the mind of self is the contrary, we are led by our own will, and of course, nothing is good enough.

In His love

Amen!