Create the means to a Christlike mindset & action

VIM: MEANS - The Vision and solid Intention to obey Christ will naturally lead us to seek out and apply the Means to that end. We have rich resources for these means in the example and teachings of Jesus, in the Scriptures, and in his people. Through such means, the inner character of the “lost” person is replaced with the inner character of Jesus: his vision, understanding, feelings, decisions, and character. 

When my neighbor who has triumphed over me in the past now stands before me with a need I can remedy, I will not be able to do the good thing on the spot if my inner being is filled with thoughts, feelings, and habits that characterize the ruined soul. 

If I intend to obey Jesus Christ, I must find the means of changing my inner being until it is substantially like his, pervasively characterized by his thoughts, feelings, habits, and relationship with the Father. 

When not on the spot, I can retrain my thinking by study and meditation on Christ himself and on the teachings in Scripture about God, his world, and my life—especially the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels, further elaborated by an understanding of the remainder of the Bible. 

-I can help my thinking and my feelings by deep reflection on the nature and bitter outcome of the standard human way in such situations in contrast to the way of Jesus. 

-I can consciously practice explicitly self-sacrificial actions in other less demanding situations. 

-I can become a person for whom looking out for number one is not the framework of life. 

-I can learn about and meditate upon the lives of well-known saints who have practiced continuously in real life Jesus’ way with adversaries and those in need. 

-I can earnestly and repeatedly pray that God will directly work in my inner being to change the things there that will enable me to obey his Son. And many other things can be done as a means to fulfilling the vision of life in God that I intend and have chosen.