Emmanuel Manishimwe (00:00)
Thank you for joining us on the 40 Days of Reconciliation podcast, Mr. James Early.
James Early (00:06)
Thank you,
It’s really wonderful to be here. I really appreciate this opportunity.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (00:12)
Thank you so much. So today he’s going to help us understand a few things regarding the mind of Christ. what does it mean to have the mind of Christ?
James Early (00:25)
⁓ I love that question, Emmanuel. And I didn’t come up with this idea. It’s right out of the Bible. Paul uses that phrase several times in the New Testament. The one that really stands out to me is in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. At the end of the chapter, Paul says, we have the mind of Christ. Another place he says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
Well, he says we have the mind of Christ. He doesn’t say it will be in the future. It’s right now. It’s already true. And so the more I’ve thought about that, the more I’ve realized, well, if this is true, we need to act like it. This is a gift we’ve been given. You know, if somebody gives you a gift and you don’t unwrap it, you don’t take it out of the box or you don’t take it out of the wrapping paper and you’re…
or you just put it up on a shelf and don’t use it, it doesn’t do you any good. But if you take this gift that God has given us, that we have the mind of Christ, we have the ability to think like Jesus did, we have the ability to pray and love like Jesus did. And so, what does that mean? I think there are several parts of…
having the mind of Christ, learning how to think. Well, it’s kind of like how to look at things from the perspective Jesus looked at things from. And the first thing that really stood out to me when I really started thinking about this is it’s the way Jesus started his ministry. The very first thing he said was, hey, I’ve got great news. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. He didn’t say it’s way off in the future.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (01:52)
you
James Early (02:12)
We still really don’t believe him. Most people think you only get to heaven after you die. And we have this later mentality that heaven is later. But Jesus said, no, no, no, the kingdom of heaven is at hand right now, right here. Later on, he would say the kingdom of God is within you. That’s an immediate presence. And I think that’s the first step for me and for anyone listening.
to accept that spiritual fact that Jesus is telling us that God’s power and kingdom and glory and love and everything that God is and does, that’s here right now. You can’t see it with your eyes, you can’t hear it with your ears, but you can receive it through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. And so,
given the fact that that was Jesus’s, that was his starting point, I think. And then he said things like, I can’t do anything by myself. This is Jesus. And he did everything. But he said, I only do, I’m paraphrasing this, I only do what I see my father do. Whatever I see my father do, I can do as well.
And he said, I don’t say anything unless God tells me to. Everything God tells me is what I tell you. So what if you and I, Emmanuel, had that kind of mentality where we only said what God told us to say? That’s pretty hard. It’s hard to even do that for five minutes. But then what if we…
Emmanuel Manishimwe (03:48)
wonderful
Very good. Yeah.
James Early (03:59)
What if we could actually see how God did things? For example, to anyone listening right now, think of somebody that you don’t really love that much, somebody that you have some problems with. Well, how would Jesus love that person?
He first, he said, I can’t love them on my own. I only love them because I see the Father loving them. I mean, I’m kind of adding those things up. So instead of trying you personally to love that person, think, how much can I see God loving that person? And yes, you can. That’s the mindset of Christ. That’s that’s getting yourself out of the way. I mean, thinking with the mind of Christ,
means that you kind of quit thinking with your mind. You set that aside. Jesus even had to do that. He said, not my will, but God’s will be done. And that was his approach to life. And so that’s kind of, to me, that’s what, in a nutshell, that’s what thinking with the mind of Christ is all about.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (05:09)
Yes, thank you so much. That was an interesting description. What do you think is the reason why many Christians don’t figure that out?
James Early (05:19)
Well, that’s a good question. I’m probably every everyone is a little different. It may be different for different people, but I’ll speak from my own experience and and some people, know people I’ve talked to I think It’s because we haven’t completely surrendered to Christ. We still want what we want. We still have our agenda. We want our little
world to be the way we want it. We haven’t given up complete control. I think Jesus gave up complete control. He said, okay, God, where do want me to go today? What do want me to do today? Who do you want me to talk to? What do you want me to say? He was just, he came as a servant. That’s kind of in the Old Testament prophecies about him. God refers to the Messiah as, behold, my servant whom I have chosen. Jesus came as a servant.
not just to us, but a servant of the Father. So I think that’s it. We haven’t surrendered. haven’t realized that life is so much more amazing and wonderful and fulfilling and rich and full with God’s abundance when we give up our own agenda. mean, think of the Lord’s Prayer. We say, thy will be done, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
Well, that implies we have to give up our will and give up our kingdom. You can’t be working it for your kingdom and for God’s kingdom at the same time. And when you surrender to God that way, then he gives you everything you need. Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything you need will be provided for you. And we forget that sometimes.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (07:03)
yes,
as you were answering that, I looked at the need
for
as Christians. You talked about it, loving one
James Early (07:13)
You know, is really an unself- true love, agape love,
is an unselfish act. It’s, well, one of the two great commandments was love your neighbor as yourself. Sometimes people love other people more than they love themselves, or they love themselves more than they love other people.
Jesus is reiterating the importance of the balance there. So what is it, how can we love ourselves and love other people the way Jesus did?
I think there’s so many ways to answer that question. When you love, even a little baby step toward loving like Jesus did, you may not, you know, it takes practice. You can’t just overnight do it maybe, it gets your own, I think it helps us get our own agenda out of the way.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (08:08)
you
James Early (08:09)
I know I had an experience one time where I was talking to someone and all of a sudden…
they realized…
that they weren’t loving me. They were only thinking about their own situation. And they realized they hadn’t been looking at it from how they could express love to me. And was like this light bulb went off. And all of a sudden, instead of being critical and judgmental of what I was doing, they said, I didn’t realize you felt a certain way. I don’t remember the exact situation. It was a long time ago.
all of a sudden they had this shift from instead of just thinking about themselves, they were looking at it from my perspective and they were loving me and having compassion on me and I felt that difference immediately. Whereas I felt judged and criticized before, all of a sudden I felt like, she cares about me. This person is expressing love to me. So I think this genuine love that doesn’t have a secret agenda to get what you want.
You’re caring about somebody else and when you love somebody else, that’s like planting a seed. You know, when you plant a seed in the ground and water it, it will grow. Some tiny little seeds grow to be big plants. That’s the way love is. You plant a little seed of love and it grows in your heart and it grows in the other person’s heart. And then that makes you want to love even more. And the more you love, the more you’re thinking like Jesus did.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (09:45)
Yes, exactly. Thank you so much. as you were sharing, it made me look around. Do you think every person who is preaching the gospel is really spreading the love of Christ? Are they encouraging the people to have the mindset of Christ? What do you think is driving these people?
James Early (10:04)
you know, I don’t know everybody. can’t speak from, you know, I don’t know. There’s so many people telling the world about Jesus. I think in all honesty, sometimes there are mixed motives. You know, you get a little bit of a sense of you want to share this good news about Jesus with people, but there are some preachers.
who are, you know, they’re looking for power and control and that happens in churches sometimes. They just want to be in control. I saw, this was a year or two ago, I saw something on YouTube where a preacher was telling his congregation, I’m the only one here that’s been to Bible school. I’m the one that knows all the answers.
You can’t do anything unless I tell you it’s okay. Well that, I don’t believe that. And there were people there that felt like, they were saying, yeah, amen, brother. And they went along with that. And I couldn’t, I could never be a member of a church like that because he was trying to be in control and dictate how people should read the Bible. I believe as the title of my ministry is, The Bible Speaks to You, I want
Emmanuel Manishimwe (11:00)
you
James Early (11:19)
I want people to read the Bible for themselves and see what God is saying to them. If there is any motive of trying to be in control or trying to be popular or trying to have a lot of influence, I think that hides the message of Christ because then it becomes about that person instead of about Christ.
We’ve all had people where you feel like they’re just trying to toot their own horn. They’re just trying to say how great they are. And there are some preachers out there or people in ministry who are doing wonderful things and they are bold and they are absolutely amazing people, but they’re giving God the credit and the glory and just letting that shine through them instead of making it about them. I would just say to everybody listening, if you
come across someone, use your spiritual awareness to discern. Is someone just there to promote themselves in the name of Christ, or are they really, really promoting the love of Christ? you also have to, we’re all coming from where we are.
I’ve gotten a lot better at doing all this than I was five or ten years ago. I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt in that if you’re really striving to follow Christ, it’s a continuing purification process. It’s a continuing process of being baptized by the Holy Spirit and letting go of your own personal agenda, those things.
I try to be not too judgmental of people unless it’s really obvious. But even then, there’s always the opportunity that they can be redeemed and become not so focused on themselves. So you just kind of have to use your spiritual awareness.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (13:13)
Thank you so much. Just asking you, have you written a book about this? Having the mind of Christ?
James Early (13:18)
I have not,
I’m working on several things. I haven’t gotten anything published yet, but yeah.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (13:25)
But you’ve written extensively, you’ve spoken extensively about this topic. Yes. Yeah, I wanted you to help us. Do you have some practical steps one can take to ensure they have the mind of Christ?
James Early (13:29)
Yes, yes.
Well, I guess the first step is that you have to realize that you need it. Because if you think you don’t need to be more like Jesus, then there’s not anything I can say probably that would convince you. That has to come from within your own heart. I would not want you to believe this just because I said it or Emmanuel said it. This is something between you and God.
Obviously, it’s important to be able to think like Jesus. You need to know as much as you can about him. And so the next thing is to study everything he said. Look at what he did, how he talked to people, how he treated people, how he loved people. And compared to, how the Pharisees did or the scribes, the religious leaders of his day.
They were very judgmental. Jesus knew that somebody had sinned. He could read their minds. He knew what was going on, but he was compassionate to them. He thought, these people need help. If you’re acting like the Pharisees and thinking, my gosh, those people, they’re so wicked, don’t ever talk to them. Or are you like Jesus and say, my gosh, these people have really
Emmanuel Manishimwe (14:34)
you
James Early (14:56)
made a mess of their lives with all the mistakes they’ve made, I want to go help them. You have to take an honest look at yourself in the mirror and say, OK, where am I on that scale of being totally judgmental or on the other side like Jesus? my gosh, how can I tell them about God’s love? And ask yourself, when Jesus was out in the crowds of people,
The Bible says he was moved with compassion.
When you are in a crowd of people, how do you feel? Do you love them? Or are like, these people are bothering me. They’re so annoying. I think it’s important for us to take an honest look at ourselves, as I said, and say, where am I on that scale of loving versus being judgmental and critical? And thinking, I’m so much better than him because I go to church and I read my Bible. Well, that’s the way the Pharisees thought.
That’s the second thing. The third thing is to pray about it. I think it’s also helpful to have others that you, well, I’ll say a community. It could be a church. It could be a Bible study. It could be any kind of a group of your friends that get together and talk about these things and share your experiences. We’re like, guess what happened the other day? was walking down the street and I met this person and I used to, normally I would have walked right past him, but I felt like God wanted me to stalk him.
and to them and I just love this person so much I could see that God loved them and you share that with somebody else or they share it with you. It’s very strengthening. So I think that sense of being in community where you can talk about these things is kind of what this podcast is doing. Right now, Manuel, you’re doing this. You’re providing a forum for us to share these ideas and hopefully it will help your listeners to…
realize, hey, I can go out and love people like Jesus did.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (16:50)
Thank you so much. I noted three key factors that are essential for this. Having the mind of Christ, praying for it, asking God for it, reading the Bible, and asking the Holy Spirit to help.
James Early (17:06)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (17:08)
Thank you so much. And I guess these three, do you think these three, prayer, Bible study and being in tune with the Holy Spirit, do you think it can help a believer to notice wrong doctrine and therefore avoid being mixed up with false teachers?
James Early (17:28)
⁓ absolutely. you know, we could all have a little bit of, I mean, we all believe what we believe, and we believe it for because either somebody told us and it sounded good and they convinced us.
But so many of the things that we believe, the doctrines that we believe, we believe because somebody told us, or we were reading the Bible and that’s what made sense to us. And for 2,000 years since Jesus was here, people have been trying to figure things out. Well, what did he really mean? If this means that, then what does this mean? then now you have people arguing over doctrine and debating all that theological stuff.
We could all be a little bit wrong. Some people may be more wrong than others, but I think the best way to discern false doctrine, and I’m not focused so much on the false teachers because they’re just teaching what somebody taught them, or it could be, and it could be sincere, or it could be
Emmanuel Manishimwe (18:24)
Thank
James Early (18:39)
they are coming up with stuff to try and be in control. So there are all kinds of reasons somebody might be preaching false doctrine. I think the more you get back to just obeying what Jesus said is the best way to sift through the tears and the wheat of man-made doctrines and the doctrines or the teachings of Christ.
And I used to be the guy that felt like, I’m right, everybody else is wrong. so all I have to do is just tell them what I believe, and they’ll say, yes, you’re right, James. Well, that didn’t work. That was like 40 or 50 years ago. At this point in my life, I think the theological debates and the accusations, well, they’re a false teacher, or that’s a false doctrine.
People love to say those things and accuse other people, but I think sometimes they’re hiding behind that and they’re not looking at themselves in the same light. So I would say to everybody, if you want to purify yourself of false, false doctrines, go back to what Jesus said, everything Jesus said, everything Jesus did, how he treated people and focus on that first.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (19:35)
you
you
James Early (19:58)
Go through the Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew. Make a list of everything Jesus said to do and do that and that will open your eyes quicker than almost anything else can. I think the church as a whole in the historical Christian church made a big mistake back in 325 AD.
at the Council of Nicaea. And I realize what I’m going to say might be a little controversial. I think they made a big mistake because when they came up with the Nicene Creed, which is I believe, I believe, I believe, it’s only about what you believe that makes you a Christian. There’s nothing in there about how you’re supposed to live your life. Jesus said, you’ll know my disciples by their love. You know a tree by its fruit.
He said, you have to put these ideas into practice. If you just say them and call me Lord, but don’t do the will of my Father in heaven, you won’t get a taste of heaven. And so I think the fatal flaw back 1,700 years ago was that we defined being a Christian by doctrine instead of by the way we practice the precepts, the teachings of Jesus.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (21:07)
you
James Early (21:22)
And so, I think the more we practice what Jesus taught us, the more we’ll see what is true and what is false.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (21:30)
What I get from you is actually more than I expected, rather than focus on the false teachings, false doctrines, guiding ourselves that we do not also wander away from the truth. Am I correct?
James Early (21:45)
Yes, you know, ⁓ here’s a little example. Well, this used to be the case with all the fancy stuff they have now in place. may not be quite the same, but think about ⁓ somebody making counterfeit money.
to train someone to spot, now they have all these little fancy ways of doing it, but in, you know, 50 years ago, for example, the way you discovered how to tell if I’m in the United States, we’ll say a hundred dollar bill, you know, money was real or not, they did not study all the different counterfeits. They studied
what a real $100 bill looked like. They studied the original, authentic one, and the more they knew the authentic one, it was much easier to spot the counterfeits. And I think that’s what I’m getting at. The more we study the life of Christ, the more we imbibe and live the life of Christ in our own life, the more those other things will be more obvious.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (22:53)
Thank you, thank you so much. So I would like to help the listeners and those who are watching to be encouraged by you, by your testimony. You could tell us how you came to know Jesus Christ, what inspired you to be a Bible teacher.
James Early (23:12)
Oh, wow. I’ll try to keep this brief. I grew up in a family where we read the Bible every day. We went to church. by the time I was in, oh, 15 or 16 years old, I started having some real serious questions about, why this and why that? I would ask questions at church and in Sunday school.
And I wasn’t always satisfied with the answers. It seemed like they were just repeating the things that they had repeated, you know, over and over for hundreds of years. And so I started reading the Bible for myself. I wanted to say, like, what does the Bible say? And that’s really when I got serious about my faith and I had always believed in Jesus. But that’s when I made a commitment to follow Christ.
to the best of my ability. And sometimes I do a better job of that than others. But that, it was really at that early age when I was still a teenager, when I made that commitment in my heart, that that’s the way I was committing my life to Christ. And so ever since then, I have tried to find ways to share my faith and I…
didn’t always do it the best way. Back in 2008, which is about 17 and a half years ago, I started doing a Bible study at a federal prison near me. And every week, and I still am doing this, every week I go to the prison and I do a Bible study. Right now I have a men’s group and a women’s group. And you know, when you teach other people about the Bible,
You learn a lot too. I learn a lot from them. They know things I don’t know. you know, we just share. It’s not like I have all the answers. But in doing that for so many years, I kind of found a way to talk about the Bible that allows people to think for themselves. I’m not trying to tell them what to think. I’m saying, let’s read these Bible stories. Let’s talk about the ideas here, the issues involved.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (25:06)
Yes, we do.
James Early (25:30)
And what did those people learn? What did they make some mistakes? What did they do right? What kind of person was they? And then how do those ideas apply in our own lives? How can we take the lessons they learned or the things Jesus is saying and apply them in our own lives? And again, I’m getting back to this. When you put something into practice, you understand it better. You’re not just repeating what someone else said.
Because that’s not really following. If you’re repeating what Jesus said and not living it in your life, you’re not really following Him. You’re ⁓ just copying what He said. Jesus wanted us to follow Him, not copy Him. So that’s kind of my life in a nutshell. Anyway, so six years ago or so I started the podcast and
I’ve had listeners in over 200 countries and territories and here I am talking to you in Uganda right now. It’s amazing to me how the technology has allowed the gospel to be preached in all the world. It’s just amazing to me. Yeah, isn’t that amazing?
Emmanuel Manishimwe (26:28)
Yes.
Praise the Lord. Yeah.
It’s amazing. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Our time is over now. May God bless you so much. Thank you for being available for this podcast. Thank you so much. Please your final word and then we close.
James Early (26:54)
Okay, well, Emmanuel, thank you so much for inviting me to be your guest today. I’ve really enjoyed it. I love your questions. I think as a final word of encouragement, I would like to share with your listeners, you know, to say you have the mind of Christ and you can love like Jesus did, that may seem like a whole lot more than you think you’re capable of, but
I want to encourage you to give yourself permission that this is true. Say, okay, well, the Bible says we have the mind of Christ, so I’m going to try that out. I’m going to work with that. I’m going to try to accept that because it may just be one little baby step at a time, one small step every day toward that. But that’s something that’s part of you. It’s a gift God has given you.
You don’t have to earn it. He has given this to you. So you have this ability. so start finding ways where you can love. Ask yourself, how would Jesus love that person? And then, you know, try to follow suit. I do want to say one more quick thing, Emmanuel. I have, I want to invite people to listen to my podcast. The Bible Speaks to You. can, know, anywhere you listen to podcasts. But if you go to my website,
I’ve created a special page just for your listeners and I’ll send you this link. It’s thebiblespeakstoyou.com forward slash the word 40, F-O-R-T-Y, based on the name of your ministry. Thebiblespeakstoyou.com forward slash 40. And there’s some resources there I’ve put together on how you can sign up for my podcast.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (28:32)
Yes? Yes?
James Early (28:43)
I put together a playlist of previous episodes talking about how to be more like Jesus and some other things. So I would just love to, if you found these ideas helpful, I’d love for you to reach out and let me know what you found was helpful and check out my podcast. I’d love that. So any way I can be of help, I’d love to.
Emmanuel Manishimwe (29:03)
Yes.
Yes. And we’ll put a link on our website as well. So thank you so much. ⁓
James Early (29:10)
Thank you.
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