Last week we looked at how scripture defines the mind and the heart of a man as the same thing in some scriptures. What is in your heart will determine how you think, and what you think will determine what you do or how you act.
This week I want to go a little bit deeper with this thought. How do we change our actions. It is impossible to act different unless you change the way you think. It is impossible to change the heart of man unless you change their thinking. So how do you change a man’s thinking?
Let me start with the word: Repent.
Not a popular subject today. When was the last time you heard your pastor talk about that. The very first think Jesus said is a taboo in most churches today. You talk about repentance and immediately you are looked upon as being judgmental. When did we allow our fear of man to become greater than our fear of God. Jesus started his entire ministry with this: “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.”
The word “repent” has a very specific meaning. You have been told it means: turn the other way. In some sense it means exactly that because when you repent it must show that your walk is different. If your actions doesn’t line up with the confession coming out of your mouth, you might be deceived. But not just your walk needs to change, so does your thinking.
The real meaning of repentance though is this:
To put your mind or thinking alongside or change the way you think. (Not just sorry I got caught)
Metanoia: Made up of two words.
Meta: accompany or alongside
Noia: from the root word “nous” which is the word for mind.
So to repent is to put your thinking alongside the mind of God and see it from the way He sees it. Look at this scripture in Isaiah 55.
- Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let the wicked forsake his way and his thoughts. Change your walk and change your thinking. To say you are sorry is only to be sorry you got caught, if you don’t change what you are thinking you will just go back and do it again. People struggle with sin because they “repent” but do not change the way they understand and think. As you think in your heart, so you will be.
The following two verses in Isaiah 55 states the following:
- For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God obviously does not think the way we do. That is why He is asking us to abandon our thinking. Forsake the way you see things and see it the way He sees it because his thoughts are higher and better than your thoughts. Repent, change the way you are thinking, and then you can change the way you are walking.
Paul reminds us very pertinent that we must renew our minds. What will happen when you place your thinking alongside the mind or the Word of God. If you place your thinking next to the way the enemy thinks, you will only leave feeling defeated, guilty and full of shame. Why does people have no problem thinking bad and negative thoughts but struggle to think good things? They have not been told that there is a better way. Here is the better way!
- 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 (reasonable sacrifice).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.
Renew your mind. The meaning for “renew” in Greek means to renovate. When you renovate a house, you take out the old stuff and install new things. When you renovate the kitchen you take out the old kitchen. There is not room enough for both the old and the new kitchen. So Paul is saying that we need to renovate our minds by taking out the old stuff, the old way of thinking and put some new thinking in there.
The next thing he says that is important is what we have already said: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Can you see it? When your thinking changes, you are transformed. When you change your thinking, the heart is transformed.
Change your thinking. When you see it from God’s perspective then you get hope and strength to stand up again.
Lastly I want to look at this scripture.
Rom 8:5-7 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
Choose what you will be thinking about.
If you set your mind on earthly things then you will end in a place of being hostile to God. Because of unregenerate thinking, people get mad at God. They blame Him for things he did not do but that they chose. They choose to live in the flesh instead of the spirit. When you do live by the flesh, things that will bring death and destruction will be evident in your life. The very God that offers help and wants to give life and peace, will be viewed as the source of your calamity, because of your thinking. Again Paul admonishes us:
Col 3:1 If you are then risen with Christ, set your mind on things above and not on things that are on the earth.
