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What is a mindset? It’s not a term we use often. The Bible describes Christians as being people who pursue transformation through the renewal of their mind (Rom. 12:2). This means that the position, orientation, or very framework of our mind has shifted—it’s been “set” by the Spirit of God. That doesn’t mean that our mind is static, but the seed of the Word has been permanently planted, and our whole life of faith springs forth from that seed (Rom. 10:17; James 1:21).
It reminds me of playing baseball when I was little. Baseball was the first sport I learned to play. Once I picked up a bat and learned how to throw a ball, I interpreted every other sport I played through the experience of playing baseball. When I played golf, I knew something of how to swing a club. When I played soccer, I knew what it meant to play offense or defense. I brought a baseball mindset to every sport that I played.
In some ways, the term worldview describes what a mindset is, but that term can be misleading. Sometimes people say, “Well, that’s just your view.” What they mean is that our views don’t need to accord with any objective truth. All that exists is power, and whoever can yell the loudest gets to impose his view of the world on others. But that’s a cynical way of viewing the world. It would mean that power is always our sole motivation, and all truth is relative. But that doesn’t make sense. People are often motivated by other things besides power. And, moreover, you can’t claim that all truth is relative, because that’s an objective truth claim. It’s contradictory.
Pointing out how relativism is contradictory doesn’t always convince people, though, does it? That’s because relativism goes deeper than simply being a view; its roots are found in a mindset of unbelief, whether secularism, practical atheism, or nominal Christianity. People can’t pick up worldviews and put them down like a pair of sunglasses, because they can’t pick up and put down a new mindset. Our mindset involves not just perceiving the world but inhabiting the world. It connects to our very life.
Life is more than simply viewing things. Life involves experiencing things on an ongoing basis, in a constant stream of consciousness. This experience involves relationships with everything we encounter: relationships with our spouse, our family, our friends, our church, our community, and even nonliving things: our house, our car, our yard. As we engage in these relationships, we bring to the encounter not just our view of things but our very selves. How will we be with our spouse? With our family? With our church? Our house? Our money? Our mindset shapes these relationships.
Jesus spoke about how our mindset is connected to who we are in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). He explained, for example, how Old Testament commandments relate to who we are inside. He said that anyone who even looks at a woman with lust commits adultery in his heart (Matt. 5:28). That’s because sin is a question of our mindset—not simply of what we do externally. He summarized by saying, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (v. 48). The Greek word used here for “perfect” is telos. It has a long history in the Greek language of indicating not just perfection but completion and wholeness. It relates to an individual’s end—what he exists to be. What do Christians exist to be in this world? We exist to be telos, as our heavenly Father is telos. We exist to be like God. That’s why God created us in the first place: to be His perfect image bearers—to glorify and enjoy Him forever as we engage in every relationship we have.
Adam and Eve failed to bear God’s image perfectly, but the Lord Jesus Christ came to fulfill what mankind was originally meant to be. Who better to show us how to manifest God to the world than God Himself made flesh? He had the perfect mindset. We also must, in all our relationships, with everyone we know, with everything we engage with, exhibit who God is. And one day, we will be perfectly like Him, for “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).