Can both of the following be true?
- We are breathing, walking, functioning recreated spirits AND…
- We are living and moving with stale, impotent thinking patterns
Could it be that we can be new creations spiritually, but suffocating that new spirit with an un-renovated mind?
Scripture says that anyone in Christ is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). The old is gone. It’s instant. It is complete. Nothing to earn, nothing to add.
But notice who Paul is writing to in Romans 12.
He is writing to believers. And he still tells them to be transformed by the renewing of their minds.
The spirit is recreated in a moment. It’s just the beginning. But our minds are renewed over a lifetime.
One is an immediate gift. The other is a sustained discipline.
It’s the daily, deliberate work of embedding God’s Word so deeply into our thought life that, little by little, it begins to outweigh our circumstances and our feelings.
We read Scripture. This gives us the information.
We meditate on it. This gives us the transformation.
We memorize it. We personalize it. We share it. We return to it in spare moments. We pray with it and through it. We deliberately do this, not only when stress and adversity demand it, but all the time and permanently.
Over time, we begin filtering what we see around us and what we feel inside us through what God says about us.
Routine, daily interactions take on a new color. We start to live and relate to our circumstances and to others by faith and not by sight. We stop fitting into the patterns of this world. We avoid being devoured by the mass hypnotism of groupthink, pity parties, and the other limitations of the common culture.
What if God’s plans for us have always been 10X more loving, interesting, impactful, fun, satisfying, abundant, and joy-filled than we could ever ask, think, imagine, or author for ourselves… but we just haven’t seen it?
What if we have stopped short of the all-in renewal of our own minds?
Remember, conforming takes no effort at all. It is the default pattern of DRIFT.
Transforming requires a renewed mindset.
A renewed mindset demands that we habitually ingest His truth, not “my truth.”
God owns the house now, and He has provided everything we need to complete the renovation.
Do you see it?
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)