Think as God thinks

God knows all things and possesses all wisdom. It is overwhelming to consider the daunting task of coming up to his knowledge and understanding. And yet, the scriptures contain clear declarations that this can and needs to be done while providing instructions on how to do it.

God wants us to know what he thinks and how he thinks so that we can know what he would feel and do in our place without relying upon new revelation at all times and in all places.¹ He wants us to be his children—children who have apprenticed and become like their father, not slavish and stupid animals:

Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. (Psalm 32:9)

He bothers to tell us so much about himself and the Father because he wants us to become more than just his passive servants.² As we go about obeying his commandments and receiving revelation, we are meant to be building an incrementally more correct model of how he is. The domain of this model cannot be confined to situations we deem as spiritual, as all things are spiritual to God.³ His character is defined in every situation throughout all creation.⁴

As we exercise diligence in building our model of how God is and live according to that model, God will teach us more about himself, ourselves, others, and the world. This is an incremental process governed by the spirit of God.

10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2)

The Lord told his apostles that they were not ready to bear everything that he had to teach them. He said the Holy Ghost would serve to control the pace of what he would teach them:

12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. (John 16)

Paul declared that it is possible to “have the mind of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 2:16), but what does this mean and how does one obtain it? Paul did not mean that those who have the mind of Christ know everything that the Father knows. John the Baptist described Jesus as having access to the spirit “without limit,”⁵ and yet there were things that the Father knew that Jesus did not know during his mortal ministry.⁶ Access to God does not bypass the successive nature of truth. The mind of Christ means having access to the next increment of information on a topic without impedance. It does not waive the need to integrate that information into your understanding and practice before receiving more.

Those who exercise greater diligence and obedience in obtaining greater understanding will obtain more understanding faster than others.⁷