Changing Your Mind

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Romans 12:2 

Do you ever change your mind? Do you find it easy or excruciating?  Depends, you say, on the matter at hand.  Makes sense, and I agree, so perhaps the better question is, “When you change your mind, do you change what you think or how you think?” Altering our process of thinking is a much bigger and bolder move than simply shifting a decision, but it’s the kind of transformation our God is all about.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”(Rom 12:2).  As followers of Christ who have been rescued and restored, we should be different—different than we were and different than others are.  The perceptions, principles, and priorities of this world just won’t do for the children of God.  Every part of our being has been renovated by God’s grace, and our new pattern for life begins (and continues) with changing our minds.  “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” 

Our new way of thinking results in a new way of living.  “Be made new in the attitude of your minds,” we’re instructed in Ephesians 4:23—a reminder that not just our thoughts but our thought process should be modified. For example, instead of simply thinking, “I should be kind,” when someone is rude and wrong, we think about why we should be kind—to accurately and authentically reflect Christ and to show love to one who might not feel very loved.  When a desire is not granted and we are disappointed, we not only think, “I should trust God,” but we also think, “My Father has proven His faithfulness over and over.  I believe, even as my heart breaks, that He will provide for my needs again and that somehow He knows what is best.”  A renewed mind thinks about life, with all it triumphs and trials, from a kingdom perspective.

This process of mind renewal seems like tough and trying stuff, but God’s Word is the key to the conversion.  When we obey God’s command to “fix these words of mind in your heart and mind”(Duet 11:18), we discover His revolutionary power in a way that we cannot experience in any other.  I could fill pages with verses declaring the potency of God’s Word, but I can also attest through personal experience, that the days I fill my mind with God’s Word by reading it, praying it, studying it, memorizing, it and thinking about it, are the times that I see most clearly and calmly the truth of what is happening in my life and around my life.  God’s Word makes all the difference.

 It is, in fact, what changes us, for we are instructed to BE transformed—not TO transform.  The change takes places when our mind is made renewed, and our mind is renewed by God’s Word.

The result of this transformation is clarification.  “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will”(Rom 12:2b).  We will be able to discern in the normal everydays of life, the crazy oftens of life, and scary sometimes of life Who God is and what He desires for us to do, to be, and to believe. 

 

We will know God’s way when we know God’s Word.

Let God change your mind.

Our All Together God

“For from him and through him and to him are all things.”  Romans 11:36

After spending the past several weeks of summer focusing fully on my family, I sense the Spirit’s nudge to again pick up the pen, but I’m wondering what to say as I start back.  I considered simply resuming in Romans where we left off (and I surely plan on finishing that amazing book), but continuing without comment seemed a bit abrupt.  And then came last Sunday—communion Sunday at my church, and suddenly I knew what to write.

While the bread and juice were being passed, the pianist played a familiar tune—“Here I am to worship; here I am to bow down; here I am to say that You’re my God.  You’re altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me.”  Though I have sung those words many times before, that morning something struck me like never before—Our God has truly got it all together.

I certainly don’t.  On that day I was feeling especially uncertain and irregular—not sure of an opportunity and not confident in my ability.   I needed the reminder and reassurance that I don’t have to have it all together because God does.  He isn’t just altogether lovely, worthy, and wonderful; He is all together lovely, all together worthy, and all together wonderful.  God is in total control.  He has a perfect and purposeful plan.  He covers the past, commands the present, and is the constant of the future.  My future.  And your future.

We don’t ever have to have it all together, and, actually, we never will.  We aren’t intended to.  Our finite minds weren’t created with the capacity to consider and control all the variables of life, but we were made to trust the One who can—and does.  No situation scares Him.  No circumstance surprises Him.  God is never thrown off guard, taken back, or undecided, and the more we trust, the less we stress. 

 “From him, and through him, and to him are all things,” we are reminded in Romans 11:36, so on those days and in those times when you feel fragmented, floundering, or faithless, remember that the One who has it all together is the One who is holding you together (Col. 1:17).

Stand strong today day and sleep well tonight knowing that even when you don’t have it all together, our lovely, worthy, and wonderful God does. 

And He always will.