What Does it Mean to be Transformed by the Renewing of Your Mind?
Romans 12:2 is a popularly quoted Bible verse. But what does it actually mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind?
Understanding what this verse means is a major key to living the victorious Christian life. Without renewing your mind, you won’t experience so much of the salvation Jesus has provided for you in this life.
To be transformed by the renewing of your mind means to change the way you think in order to experience everything God has provided for you.
Have you ever wondered why you are not experiencing what the Bible says you can have? Perfect peace, divine health, blessed relationships, safety, prosperity, joy and fulfillment are all God’s will for you. But you won’t experience much of God’s will without renewing your mind. The renewing of your mind is how you manifest God’s will in your life.
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
Renewing your mind consists of replacing old ways of thinking with new thought patterns.
When Jesus was crucified and rose again, He provided everything you could possibly need for this life and beyond.
as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 2 Peter 1:3 NKJV
If you don’t know what has been provided for you and align your thinking with this new reality, you won’t experience much of it.
What God has provided is an absolute reality in the spiritual realm. Your inheritance as a child of God is waiting for you to receive it. So how do we get the things that are true in the spiritual realm into the physical realm? This is where the renewing of the mind becomes crucial.
Your mind is like the filter that takes everything that’s true in the spiritual realm and brings it into physical manifestation. This is why it is so critical to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
How to Start Renewing Your Mind
Transformation in your life will come through the renewing of the mind. So how do you start renewing your mind?
Begin with your identity. There’s an identity you believe about yourself. It was probably subconsciously taught to you by your parents, siblings, teachers, and community you grew up in. This is who you believe you are. This identity may or may not agree with who God says you are.
Situations happen in our childhood that the enemy uses to influence who we believe we are. Everybody experiences this to some degree. We must learn to reject these lies about ourselves and renew our mind to the truth of who God says we are.
When you receive Christ and become born again, you become an entirely new creation. This change takes place in your spirit. You received a brand new spirit, but your soul (mind, will, and emotions) and body are still the same as before you got born again.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
You have received a new spirit, that is perfect and holy. The real you looks just like Jesus!
In order to start experiencing this reality, your soul (mind, will, and emotions) need to be renewed.
… because as He is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:17 NKJV
and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:24 NKJV
This new spirit is the real you, the part of you that will live for all eternity. Your spirit is that part of you that brings life to your body. When your spirit leaves, your body has no more life in it.
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. James 2:26 NKJV
There is no way to know what you’re really like unless you see it in the Word of God. This is how the Bible is like a mirror for us. We look into the Word of God to discover the truth about our new nature.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. James 1: 23-24 NKJV
Transformation Comes As You Renew Your Mind
Learning to renew or “re-wire” your mind takes time, but it is worth it. When the mind starts to be renewed, transformation happens in the physical realm.
For example, maybe you’re somebody who has believed what the world teaches you about sickness- that you just have to get sick, it’s a part of life, etc. etc. Then you find out that God says you have been healed by the stripes of Jesus (1 Peter 2:24) and redeemed from sickness forever (Galatians 3:13).
As you begin to renew your mind to this truth, you will see transformation in your health. As the reality of the Word of God becomes your dominant way of thinking, your body will line up with it and transformation will occur.
You renew your mind one thought pattern at a time. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what area of your life needs to be changed. The brain is capable of being completely remodeled. It is designed with the capability of being renewed and changed.
A wonderful way to rewire your brain is to speak the Word of God out loud. Your mind will believe what you say over what other people say. When your mind hears you constantly speaking the Word over yourself, it will start to think differently. The Word of God is alive and powerful.
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12 NKJV
Bad thinking needs to be stopped. How do you stop a wrong thinking pattern? The Bible tells us to take every thought captive and replace it with the Word of God.
casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 2 Corinthians 10:5 NKJV
You take a thought captive when you notice it and bring it into subjection.
Instead of just mindlessly allowing thoughts to pass through your mind, you start to pay attention to them. All the sudden you notice what you are thinking about. You take the thought captive and replace it with the truth of what God says.
The best way to replace a thought is to speak out loud the new thought. When you speak something out loud, your brain is forced to stop what it was thinking and focus on what you are saying.
Spoken words are so powerful! For more about this, read How is the Tongue like the Rudder of a Ship?
