I have been desperately trying to find a clear way to express how we can acquire the mind of Christ. The more and more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it probably takes an entire lifetime to accomplish this task. In fact the journey of life is a journey wherein we face the challenges of life and try to meet them with the same quiet resolve as Jesus did. This quiet resolve is possible, however, when we have learned how to place our total trust and hope in God – when we deeply believe that God has given us this earthly life out of love and that the challenges of this life are never greater than we can manage and that they are uniquely designed to provide us with opportunities to grow in our trust and hope in God.

What do we know about “how” Jesus thought? The beginning of any understanding of how Jesus thought must be connected with how He prayed.

We know that He prayed like any good Jewish man. He knew the Psalms, which were a substantial part of His prayer life. Further, we know that He created His own prayers to God, the primary one, which He shared with His apostles, the Our Father.

So in order to acquire the mind of Christ, we must look closer at this most beautiful prayer. A prayer which is, perhaps, the most important prayer of Christianity.

First, He addresses God as Father. He did not, however, use the formal Aramaic word for Father but, rather, a very child-like word, Abba. It is a term which expresses deep affection and admiration for the Father. It is not a term that is used for a authoritarian and demanding fa-ther. It is a term for a father in whom a child can place his entire hope and trust. He is not a father of rules, regulations and demands, but a loving father who is always there for His children. The word Abba in Aramaic would most closely be translated as “Daddy.” I suspect that Abba could very easily be used for the father of the prodigal son.

So perhaps the first step in acquiring the mind of Christ is to focus our thoughts on seeing God as ABBA – our loving father. This means dispelling all of our thoughts of a Father concerned about catching us doing wrong so that He can threaten us with punishment. This approach then sets the stage for us trying to do all in our to not dishonor Him and to praise Him for His love.