Grace Part 43: Renovation of the Mind

Romans 12:2 (NASB) “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

The word “renew” is the Greek word anakainosis which means “renovation.” It’s not just that we have the wrong information; it is that the “main frame” has been thoroughly infected with a virus that affects all information coming into it. We live out of the wrong “frame of mind.” We need a new framework from which to think and feel and make our choices. Renovation means tearing everything out down to the frame work; having the very composition cleaned and changed in order for us to have the mind of Christ and grasp the thoughts of God.

Our spirit is the legitimate seat of our identity. Before our new birth, our spirit existed but dead, separated from God by the sin nature inherited in Adam. It was dead to God, cut off from Him, separated from Life. This is why it had to be crucified. It had to die, be buried, and raised to new LIFE, His LIFE, in order to be made a new spirit.

Living with that old dead spirit is what caused your mind to be programmed to fleshly thinking. Without a spirit in communion with God, all you had to use to deal with life was your soul’s limited reasoning, constantly fluctuating feelings, and your body’s cravings and demands. The soul’s misguided emotions, flawed reasoning, and vain imaginations were also subject to your body’s sinful passions. The Bible refers to this as the “flesh.” It’s what developed in all our lives, a mindset of the flesh, how we lived from birth until we were born-again. It was the means by which we survived life. The way we learned to cope. Romans 8 tells us the flesh is against the spirit, fights against it, and will not submit to it. It also tells us that if we continue to live according to the flesh we must die. That’s what the flesh produces, fruit for death. This is why our minds need transformation, to be delivered from living according to the flesh; to be subservient to our new identity in Christ and to learn to walk after the Spirit, to produce fruit for God and Life.

Colossians 3:10 (NASB) “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him,” This means to be changed into a new kind of life as opposed to the former corrupt flesh life, by allowing who we now are in our spirit, who we now are in Christ, to change our identity. To put on the identity of Christ’s Life and allow His Life to live through us.

Ephesians 4:23 says, “and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” To be spiritually transformed is to take on a new mind. There’s a big difference between redecorating and renovating. To redecorate a bathroom is to paint the walls another color, hang new wallpaper and new pictures, and set out new knick-knacks.

But in renovating, you realize the real condition of the bathroom is underneath the wall paper, in behind the walls and under the floor. You have to tear out the sheet rock and get a look at the framework. And you may have to tear out the framework if the wood has rotted away. You have to tear up the floors and even replace the foundation and the plumbing that has caused the deterioration. You have to tear it all out and put in the new.

A redecorated bathroom that actually needs renovating may look beautiful but the odor of the rot will still be there until it is dealt and replaced with new.  A redecorated but un-renewed mind will have the same stench. The believer may look like they are doing all the right things outwardly but it brings forth stench of fruit for death instead of the fragrance of the fruit of the Spirit.

Here’s a few essential new revelations to renew the mind:

I am a spirit, a new creature, a new creation, created in the image of Christ Jesus. This is my new and true identity.

I have a soul. Much like having a suitcase in which I carry my clothes. Before I was born-again, this was my baggage. I put off the old clothes of who I used to be and put on the new clothes of my new self, renewed in the true knowledge of Jesus by renewing my mind.

I live in a body. It’s my house. I maintain it but it doesn’t tell me who I am or what I’m worth or how to live. I make it my servant for righteousness.

2 Corinthians 10:5 (NASB) “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”

I take captive every thought and vain imagination that comes against my mind and instead declare God’s word of truth, agreeing with the mind of Christ and living after the Spirit.

Grace Part 42 What is Transformation?

The Word, allowed to be planted on the inside of us, along with the working of the Spirit changes us. Renewal of the mind, also known as the salvation of the soul, is a supernatural process. Romans 12:2 speaks of being “transformed” which is metamorphoo in the Greek. It means to be changed and is sometimes translated “transfigured.” In the world of nature, it is the change process that a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly.

When you were born-again you did not automatically become a butterfly.  The nature, the DNA, of the flying butterfly is born in the crawling caterpillar, but if the caterpillar does not follow through, it will not turn into a butterfly. It is in the cocoon that he “metamorphoos.”  From the inside out, an inexplicable miracle occurs.

Though born-again with the “DNA” of Jesus in their spirits, many people go on as caterpillars. They often dress up like butterflies to make others think they have matured, but the fact is butterflies fly. Transformed believers know the lift of their true identity that carries them into flight. Many believers miss this because no one has discipled them on how to get into the cocoon and let the metamorphoo process take place.

Unlike receiving knowledge, the mind is not directly transformed with new knowledge but indirectly through the help of the Holy Spirit’s revelation. Meditating on the Word lets it come alive to do the work of renovating the mind. This process is marked with “capturing every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” It destroys the strongholds of lies and wrong thinking that exist in our souls. It reveals Truth that transforms us to think and in turn, act like the Son, transforming us into His image.

1 Corinthians 2:15–16 (NASB) “But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man.¹⁶ For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” We potentially have access to the mind of Christ through the Word and the Spirit but our minds need to be renewed to be able to receive the thoughts of the mind of the Lord.

We need to know what “renewal of the mind” is not as much as of what it is. Renewing the mind is not positive thinking. We need to think God’s Truth which is not always positive. It’s not just refusing wrong thoughts, at which, we can never fully succeed. It’s like saying, “Just don’t think about “it”.” And then “it” is on your mind all day long. Has that ever worked? ‘

It’s not reprogramming with new information. Not just a receptacle of information, the mind is intimately entwined with your spirit. Hebrews 4:12 says the heart is spirit and soul. There are many groups that try to reprogram minds like Science of Minds, L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology’s dianetics, EST, the Moonies, The Way and many other cults teach a false means of salvation. Why do these fail? Because there is not a change in the inner man. The spirit remains dead, under the law of sin and death and continues to corrupt the whole being. These are just other means of the flesh trying to deal with life without God.

And the new way of living as a Christian is not about hanging “Christian” on something the world is doing. Over the years, I’ve seen Christian martial arts, Christian yoga, Christian Heavy Metal, Christian “whatever the world has” so we can attract unbelievers into our circles, so we can be relevant and relating. This is not renewal and defeats the testimony of being changed by His Life in us. Titus 3:5 (NASB) He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit…” 

The world will never relate to the born-again believer. If we pretend to be like the lost, what are we offering them that they don’t already have. We need to be different! The world isn’t even capable of comprehending, much less relating to us as spirit born believers. And why do we feel the need to be relevant to the world. Look what Paul says about this: Galatians 6:14 (NASB) “But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

In our witnessing, evangelism, and the way we do church, we must trust in the power of the Holy Spirit and His ways of reaching an unbeliever’s heart. This is why we are called to walk after the Spirit. The flesh and its ways will never bring the world to a revelation of Jesus Christ and the power of His cross. But the Holy Spirit has been doing it in millions of lives for a couple of millennia!