Renewing Your Mind - Pt 1

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2 ESV).

For as long as I can remember I have relied on the truth in our reading today whenever I begin to help others through the challenges they face in their personal journey. The key word of the Apostle Paul is the challenge to “be transformed.” He further says that the means to this transformation is the “renewal of the mind.” I like to remind people that our mind is the most powerful organ of our body. It controls what we ultimately feel in life. While our emotions are utterly unreliable, our minds can be reshaped and renewed to bring control over our emotional weaknesses. I want to explore two things in our reading that will help us with this transformation. The first is the will of God. This phrase is often found in the Scripture. We use it often today though I think that sometimes, when we use it, we may not know what we are talking about. That is not spiritually healthy. If you get into the habit of using religious language without knowing what you mean by it, you will increasingly become an empty shell. And many alien affections move into empty religious minds which have language but little or wrong content. The term “the will of God” has at least two and possibly three biblical meanings. First, there is the sovereign will of God. This is that will that always comes to pass without fail. Second, there is the revealed will of God in the Bible. These are those enjoinders that God has given us to point us to his grace and love. This will often does not come to pass. And third, there is the path of wisdom and spontaneous godliness — wisdom where we consciously apply the word of God with our renewed minds to complex moral circumstances, and spontaneous godliness where we live most of our lives without conscious reflection on the hundreds of things we say and do all day. We’ll look more at this truth in the coming days. Today I want us to focus on another phrase we see in the reading. The apostle says we are not be conformed to this world, but be “transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” We are perfectly useless if all we do is conform to the world around us. And the key to not wasting our lives with this kind of success and prosperity, Paul says, is being transformed. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.” That word is used one time in all the gospels, namely, about Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration (the mountain of “transformation” — same word, metemorphōthē): “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (cf. Matthew 17:2). While we will see more detail tomorrow; today please commit yourself to transformation. This renewal will only happen as you intentional give yourself to the process. It is absolutely worth the effort. Will you do it today?