Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the Lord, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. 8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:6-9 NKJV

The apostle Paul taught us in his letter to the Corinthian Christians that Jesus Christ indwells and fills the believer, so that the mind is renewed and becomes a channel for God’s thoughts: “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).

Unlike the people of Israel in the days of the prophet Isaiah, we need the mind of God before making major decisions that could impact the plan and purpose of God for our lives. Israel was alienated from God and had drifted so far away.  In stead of submitting to the laws and judgments of God, they were judging God by their own thoughts and ways. But the pathway to blessing is in seeking the Lord and forsaking sin (Ps. 16:11).

To seek the Lord is to acknowledge Him, to ask of Him (pray), to diligently inquire and search for Him, and even, to worship Him (John 4:24).  God is always near (Mark 1:15; Luke 17:21; Ps. 139:7, 8).  But we are admonished to repent and forsake “our ways and thoughts” and return to God (Isa. 55:6).  Now, there is a risk of drifting too far away from “God’s thoughts” which can cause a “reprobate mind”—a mind that is disapproved, castaway, rejected, worthless, and destitute of good judgment—for those who refuse to retain the knowledge of God (righteous thoughts) (Rom. 1:28).

Thoughts are the products of thinking, i.e., contrivances, imaginations, plots, and plans, etc.  God has thoughts (Jer. 29:11) and our challenge is to think His thoughts which will produce His ways in our lives. Often, our thoughts are the product of religious tradition and preconceived ideas that hold us in bondage. The good news is that God’s ways and thoughts are so much higher and because of Jesus’ indwelling Spirit, can we attain to God’s thoughts. To do so is to have the mind of God. Philippians 2:5 instructs us to, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus!