Jesus said that we must become as little children (Mt 18:3) … that we must have the same faith and trust in God that little children have in their parents.

On the other hand, Paul says that the carnal mind is enmity with God (Rom 8:7). Why is it that new Christians can believe God for all things to help them in all circumstances while more mature Christians, and especially very educated ones, seem to lose that kind of infinite faith? The problem is that our intellect, our carnal mind, is constantly questioning whether our faith is realistic and true.

Scripture says that common people heard Jesus gladly (Mk 12:37), which means that many of the uneducated were ready to receive Jesus’ teachings while the educated class, the Pharisees, refused Him. Was it the rigid teachings of the Pharisees or was it that they were more intellectual and more questioning of all things? Perhaps a little bit of both.

Our natural mind has, for ages, been attempting to understand the world around us without considering God. The more we learned about nature and science, the further away our mind drifted from God. When the Scripture talks about God’s miracles, our natural mind often tries to explain those miracles away. When the Bible says that God opened a passage in the Red Sea (Ex 14:15-30), we are told that this was not really the “Red” Sea, but the “Reed” Sea, which was only about knee deep. Of course, it takes a much greater miracle to drown the Egyptian army in knee deep water than it takes to guide Israel through the Red Sea where the water formed a wall on every side. Truly, the natural mind is enmity with the things of God, and we need to learn to make that mind our friend instead of our enemy, so that we can have undoubting faith like that of little children.

How then can we work to change our mind? By studying the Scripture and relying on the Holy Spirit as our Counselor. We need to explore who this omnipotent God is, so that our minds will never again ask: “Can God really do this? Don’t be silly.”

This all may seem like a trivial point when things are going well. However, it may save us from getting out of fellowship with God and perhaps even saving our very lives if we ever get into a troubling situation where we cannot see the way out.

Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.