The Messiah Mindset [PART 1] - Stabilize to Prioritize

Greetings, my friend,

Welcome to The Arsenal, your bi-monthly resource for training and equipping you to live a set-apart lifestyle.

And welcome to part 1 of a brand new, three-part series, one I’ve titled “The Messiah Mindset.”

If you’re reading this, there’s quite a large chance you believe that the final, atoning sacrifice of Yahweh’s Son, Yeshua the Messiah, has washed you clean of your sins simply by believing it and professing He is Lord. Additionally, you also are probably striving to live a self-improvement lifestyle, become the most-disciplined version of yourself, and are seeking to discover what your purpose is during our short time here on this earth.

But if you’re anything like myself, you’ll quickly discover that the more you make an effort to improve, the harder it seems to become to stay consistent and make those important changes in your life. We may initially ride the wave of motivation we receive from the excitement of new ideas on how to live better physically, mentally, or spiritually. But within a matter of weeks or even days, we fall off and end feeling worse than before out of guilt for not staying consistent. And no motivational coach, book, or quotes seem to be helping in overcoming that struggle.

So, why not look to the One we put our hope in daily? In addition to relying on Yeshua for our salvation and being our help in times of need, I believe He’s the greatest life coach of all time, One who not only lived a perfect life, but also is someone who lived and acted powerfully and effectively, as the Scriptures demonstrate. And as many of us know, we’re called to imitate Him (1 Corinthians 11:1) and walk just as He walked (1 John 2:6).

All that to say, from analysis of Messiah’s lifestyle, behavior, and actions during His first coming to this earth, we can certainly glean some wisdom on how to live a truly set-apart life from the multiple perspectives of His life via the Gospel accounts. And that’s what we’re going to be exploring and what I encourage you to meditate on over the next six weeks.

Off we go.

Here’s one thing I’d encourage you NOT to do right off the bat: Immediately give in to your emotions and break down when things don’t go your way.

We all go through phases of our lives where nothing seems to be going the way we’d prefer: Perhaps you’re beginning to get frustrated you’re not at the point where you want to be yet with your lifestyle habits, career, relationship status, etc. In these scenarios, the temptation arises to feel like you’re a screw up who can’t do anything right, or to become impatient and begin making poor, impulsive decisions to try to speed up the process. Perhaps you may resort to both. 

Both of these cases can ultimately be driven by anger, jealousy, and disappointment, all of which will eventually evolve into self-pity if you let it. And at this point, the Enemy has you ensnared and handicapped by your pride, often making you extremely unmotivated and ineffective in eventually reaching those goals you desire.

But here’s one thing that I find so beautiful about the life of our Savior: You don’t think He ever felt this way Himself during His earthly ministry? I’d be willing to bet you He did. Consider the following powerful verse from the epistle to the Hebrews:

The Scriptures also show us that our Messiah certainly experienced emotions surrounding His attempts to teach His followers (and all of Israel) how to live out the Torah properly and walk as we ought to as believers. 

For starters, we know that He was frustrated with the current state of religious authority and doctrine in 1st century Israel. We see Him often rebuke the religious leaders of His time for leading His people astray into the depths of man-made tradition and pride (Matthew 22:29 & 23:1-33; Mark 8:11-12 & 12:38-40; Luke 11:42). He even went as far as to perform the premeditated act of crafting a whip and driving merchants out of the Temple in Jerusalem for disrespecting His Father’s house (Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:14-17). You can imagine there were some strong feelings driving that event, especially when you also know that the entire religious (and governmental) system was fighting tooth and nail against you on everything you were trying to reveal and demonstrate to Yahweh’s people as the prophesied Messiah.

To make matters worse, Yeshua, on many occasions, even had to rebuke His own disciples He was working hard to teach. Throughout the Gospel accounts, He rebuked them for their lack of faith (Matthew 14:22-33 & 17:15-17; Mark 4:35-41; ), as well as for their lack of understanding of His teachings (Matthew 15:16-18; Mark 4:13 & 8:14-21). Imagine being in Yeshua’s shoes for a moment: Your disciples get a front row seat to all of your sermons, not to mention all of the incredible miracles, signs, and wonders you perform, yet they still don’t fully trust or understand you? That must’ve certainly been aggravating. 

Lastly, we also know that Yeshua certainly experienced disappointment and grief from things that happened throughout the course of His ministry. In addition to probably being disappointed in His disciples on multiple occasions, Scripture explicitly mentions He wept several times over various things. The first of which was the death of His friend Lazarus (John 11:32-36), and another being over the city of Jerusalem for rejecting Him as the Messiah (Luke 19:41-44). He even tells Peter, James, and John in the Garden of Gethsemane that He felt deep anguish over His coming death (Matthew 26:38) and even began to sweat blood because of His anguish while praying to The Father there (Luke 22:24). Once again, putting yourself in His place there with knowing the excruciating death that awaited Him, it makes our daily struggles and the things we find ourselves disappointed with or sad about pale in comparison to the type of physical and emotional pain He went through for us. 

And yet, as the end of Hebrews 4:15 states, He didn’t sin once through all of these emotional struggles He went through! He didn’t let His own emotions become a distraction or stumbling block as He worked to accomplish the mission He was given, and in His mercy and love for all of humanity, even those same people persecuting and executing Him, He fulfilled His true purpose and never lost sight of the ultimate goal of reconciling us to the Father. 

When we examine the life of our Messiah from this emotional, fully human perspective, it paints a whole new picture of who He really is and just how inspirational of a God we serve. At the very least, it should make us open our eyes to how trivial the things we let ourselves stumble over and even cause us to fall into sin are. After all, when was the last time you were facing an impending death on a cross amid the entire religious authority wanting you dead, your disciples doubting, betraying, and even denying you before others, all while you’ve done nothing wrong? 

All of this to say that if Yeshua can remain focused under such an extreme circumstance, it would be in our best interest to imitate Him as best as possible as we strive to overcome our own emotional setbacks to reach our goals and fulfill our true purpose in growing the Kingdom.

And just as the Messiah Himself granted us divine grace, we must also remember to give ourselves grace from time to time, because obviously, we will never be perfect. As the apostle Paul wrote, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). 

But, in Paul’s wording, should we then not even try? Let it not be! Allow me to reiterate that as followers of Messiah, it’s not a recommendation, it’s not an opinion, it’s a commandment that we imitate Yeshua to the best of our ability and walk just as He walked (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1-2; 1 Peter 2:21). In this lofty endeavor, I believe it’s extremely beneficial to analyze the human nature of Yeshua as well to build perseverance for achieving our goals.

So what are some practical ways we can set ourselves up for success in imitating our Messiah’s focus on the mission, despite our flawed human nature? The apostolic writings following the Gospel accounts can help us elaborate upon the example of this aspect of Yeshua’s life and offer us great encouragement on building a mindset of success and endurance. 

Consider something Paul wrote in his epistle to the Roman church:

Even when we fall short, as Paul wrote earlier in Romans, it’s hard to be too upset when we know that even our shortcomings in following our God-given purpose are to our benefit in the end. It’s hard to be down and out for too long when we let this thought sink in! 

James, a half-brother of the Messiah Himself, seems to elaborate on this thought in his own epistle:

I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty difficult to be unmotivated when you’re happy. And from what Proverbs 17:22 tells us, a joyful heart is good medicine, and not just in the physical sense. 

But what about those moments when it’s hard to be joyful? What’s the fallback? My suggestion is simple, to remember the following words:

In our effort to live by the Scriptures and “hold fast to the word of life,” this is a passage not given much thought beyond its surface level meaning. When we inevitably lose motivation after a while and especially if we begin to lose our joy amid our trials throughout the journey, remembering this verse can act as a failsafe to get us back on the right track before it’s too late.

I hope you’ve begun to receive a new perspective on the One whom we worship as our King and salvation. And I also hope you are beginning to see the depth and wisdom contained in the Gospel accounts that we can glean from to help any believer live a set-apart lifestyle in order to fulfill their true purpose. 

With the foundation laid in showing Yeshua’s perfect example of emotional control while having a mission-focused mindset, you might be wondering, what are your next steps? More specifically, how do you prepare for the mission ahead of you now that you understand how to get your head in the game?

Your answers can be found in the Word.

TO BE CONTINUED…

And be blessed.