Mindset - Being Transformed
by the Renewing of Your Mind

he Bible tells us that one of the highest and ultimate goals that God has in store for each one of us is our transformation - and this transformation is accomplished by the renewing of our mind. The Bible tells us that God wants sanctify us and transform us into the express image of His Son Jesus Christ. He wants to make us into a better and more holy people - both on the inside and the outside.

Here is the specific verse from Scripture that will tell us that this kind of transformation is done by the renewing of our minds in the Lord:

"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)

I believe this transformation process has 3 major steps to it. They are as follows:

1. Knowledge From The Word

The first thing each Christian must know is exactly what it is that God wants to change about us. If you don’t know exactly what it is God wants to do with you in this sanctification-transformation process, then you will have a hard time in being able to cooperate with Him once He does try to start the renewal and transformation process on the inside of you.

The Bible tells us that this sanctification-transformation process is actually done by the Holy Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit will not start this transformation process in you until He has something to work with - and that something is knowledge.

God expects you to play a direct part in this transformation process if He is going to start to work it in you. In the three steps that will get this transformation process going for you - you will be responsible for doing the first two. If you are willing to put some quality time and effort in doing these first two steps, then God will do His part and He will then actually do all of step 3 for you in order to make this kind of transformation really possible to achieve in this lifetime.

The first step will be to study the Bible for the specific points that God will be looking to target to change you into the kind of person He really wants you to become in Him. Since many of these verses pertaining to all of this are scattered throughout the entire Bible, I'm going to list, in subsequent articles, some of the most powerful verses in all of Scripture - showing you exactly what godly and saintly qualities that God will want to work and impart into the very core of your personality.

King David tells us in the Old Testament that we are to meditate on the Word of God. To meditate means to think about, to chew on, to try and figure out what God is trying to tell us in His Word - and then to try and see how it applies to our daily life and how we can get some of these positive qualites worked and imparted into our personalites.

If you will spend some good, regular, quality time really studying and meditating on what is in these specific verses I will be listing in the other articles in this Sanctification section of our site, you will then have right at your fingertips exactly what it is that God wants to start working into your personality. And once you have the basic knowledge of what these positive and godly qualities are going to be that God will be looking to impart in you - then you will be ready for step 2.

The reason I have the word "mindset" listed in the title of this article is because you have to know exactly what it is that you have to "set your mind on" before God can really kick this transformation process into full gear - hence the word "mindset."

You have to develop "right thinking" in the Lord, but you can't develop right thinking in the Lord unless you first know exactly what it is that you should be thinking right about. The Scripture verses that will be listed in these subsequent articles will show you all the things that God will want you to dwell on and think right about in order to help you with this renewing of your mind.

2. Put On Positive Qualities - Put Away Negative Qualities

You will find two key words that will be repeated several times in many of the Scripture verses that will follow in these other articles. These two key words are "putting on" and "putting away."

The Bible tells us that we are the ones who are to try and "put on" the good and godly qualities that God will want us to have operating in our personalities and to "put away" all of the bad and negative qualities that He will not want us to have operating in our personalities.

This step right here is where many Christians are missing the boat. They have been walking with the Lord for years and they wonder why there has not been many changes in the very cores of their personalities. Where is the peace, the joy, the love, the sound mind, and the self-control that the Bible promises me once I fully commit my life to the Lord? Why is it that I still have a problem in controlling my temper, my cussing, and my critical and judgmental spirit?

Once you know that the Bible tells you to have self-control over your bad temper, over your bad mouth and over your condescending and critical attitudes - then it will be your job at this point to make some kind of concerted effort to actually "put away" these kinds of negative and destructive qualities from your personality.

Example - say you have a problem with a bad temper. The least little thing will set you off. The first step, as described above, is to find the specific verses from the Bible on this topic so you can see exactly what God's Word has to say about having bad and quick tempers. Once you know what God’s opinion really is on the matter through His Word - then you will have the appropriate knowledge to work with in order to try and tackle this problem.

Once you see in God’s Word that He doesn’t want His people having bad and quick tempers - then you will now be ready for step 2. Now here is where your part will really come into play.

Now that you know God wants your bad temper removed from your personality - He will now expect you to try and put away this bad and negative quality. You will now have to start to engage with your quick and bad temper every single time you find yourself in a situation that will start to trigger it to release. You will now have to make some kind of attempt on your end to "put away" your bad temper and "put on" the quality of self-control.

Say someone has just cut you off in traffic. Your normal response may be to start cussing at this person and try to flip him off if you can get close enough to him. Your bad temper as now been fully triggered like it does every time someone cuts you off in traffic.

At this point, you have to make the best effort you can to try and control the release of your bad temper. You may have to literally bite your tongue to keep all the cuss words from flying out of your mouth. When your bad temper releases on you, it is like a fire that explodes out of your belly. Once this fire starts to explode, you have to make a very strong and concerted effort to neutralize it before the fire hits your mouth and causes you to start cussing.

You will have to try and put on the godly quality of self-control in order to try and douse the fire - like pouring cold water on a hot fire. You will have to tell yourself and give yourself a pep talk that you will directly engage with your bad temper every single time you find yourself in a situation that will trigger its release.

At first, you may not have much luck, because the release of your bad temper has become such an automatic bad habit. It has become an automatic response to certain situations. But if you keep at it, over the course of time you will start to get more self-control over it, and you will then be able to dramatically reduce the number of times that you will actually go off.

The reason your bad temper triggers so easily is because you are weak in the quality of self-control. Self-control is one of the qualities that God wants to impart and work into your personality. You will see this positive quality mentioned numerous times in the verses to follow in these other articles.

By attempting to put on this very positive quality into your personality, you will have the live ammunition you will need not only to be able to overcome a bad and nasty temper, but other bad and negative qualities such as too much of a critical or judgmental spirit, an unforgiving spirit, and too much pride, arrogance and haughtiness.

The quality of self-control can really help you "put away" many of these bad and toxic qualites that the Lord really does not want operating in your personality.

The same approach goes for trying to incorporate positive qualities into your personality. The Bible tells us that God wants us to be loving, kind, generous and gentle people.

Some people do not have many of these positive qualities operating in them due to all of the bad things that may have happened to them in this life. What God wants you to do anyway is to try and "put on" some of these positive and godly qualities. Try to the best of your abilities to become more loving, more patient, more kind - even if you don't feel like it. If you will make some kind of decent and concerted effort to do this on your end, then God will start to do His part - which will now lead us into step 3.

Each one of us only has a certain amount of mental and emotional strength in our own personal makeups. We can only go so far with step 2. We can only get ourselves to a certain point in being able to become more loving, more kind and more patient. Our best is not going to be good enough to get this transformation process properly completed to the degree that the Lord would really like in this lifetime.

God wants to make us more loving, more patient, more kind, and more peaceful than we could ever get ourselves to be by using our own natural strength. So how can the Lord do this?

If we have spent quality time studying the Bible in reference to the changes God wants to make into our personalities, and we have tried to the best of our abilities to put on the good, godly and saintly qualities that He would really like to have operating in our personalities, then how can God get us up to the level that He is really looking for as you will see in the Scripture verses to follow?

Since our best is obviously not going to be good enough - how can God complete this transformation process to the degree that would really please Him in this lifetime? This will now lead us into step 3.

3. By the Power of the The Holy Spirit

As you will see in some of the verses to follow, this transformation process is completed "by the power of the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit lives on the inside of each believer and it is His job to mold, shape and transform us into the kind of holy and righteous people that God the Father would really like all of us to become in Him.

Many Christians already know this. They then wonder why there has not been much change in their personalities after they have been saved. Where is the Holy Spirit? How come He is not removing some of my negative qualities? How come I’m still crabby, miserable and depressed all of the time?

The reason there has been little if any true changes in a believer's personality after they initially get saved is because they have not spent enough time doing their part in steps 1 and 2. They have not spent enough quality time in the Word of God to learn exactly what it is God wants to change about them, and they have not made any real concerted effort on their end to try and change for the better - to try and put on the godly and saintly qualities that God the Father wants them to have operating in their personalities.

If each Christian would do their part as described in the above first two steps - then God the Father would only be too anxious to complete this transformation process for you through the power of His Holy Spirit.

What will happen in this third step is that God the Father will then start to impart His peace, His love, His joy, His kindness, His patience and His perseverance into your personality through the Holy Spirit. These will be His qualities and attributes being imparted into you - not yours!

You only have a certain amount of love within your own natural personality to give and to express to others. However, once God starts to release His love into your personality - then you will be able to love others in the way that the Lord would really like. Then you can start loving your children, your spouse and your friends to the degree that you would really like to.

Once God's personality qualities and attributes start to enter into your personality - then many of the negative qualities that you have will start to "wash away." Once you have God’s love, God’s joy and God’s peace now starting to flow through your personality - you will no longer feel crabby, depressed and miserable like you did before.

God’s love and God’s joy will now be replacing those negative emotions. You cannot feel depressed and unhappy if the love and joy of God is operating in your personality through the Holy Spirit. This is not to say we will never get crabby, irritable or down at times. We all live in an imperfect, cursed and fallen world and we are living in bodies that are slowly dying and corrupting.

But when God really kicks this transformation process into full gear for you, the down days will not last as long as they used to. You won’t have as many of them and when you do, they won’t last as long as they use to. With God’s peace flowing through you, you will find yourself not getting as upset as often as you did in the past. You may still lose it from time to time, but not to the same degree and frequency that you use to.

One of the greatest accomplishments anyone can achieve in this life is to find true inner happiness, true inner contentment and true inner fulfillment in this life.

True happiness can only be found on the inside of your being in your connection and personal relationship with the Lord. All of the material wealth and goods that are out there for the taking will not give you this kind of true inner happiness and fulfillment.

All you have to do is look around you and see all of the unhappy, depressed and miserable people that are out there - especially those who are rich and supposedly have it "all." Ever wonder why so many of the Hollywood movie stars are doing drugs and seeing therapists? They are finding out that all of their material wealth, fame and notoriety are not giving them the true inner happiness and fulfillment they thought that this kind of life would bring them.

As born-again, Spirit-filled Christians, we all know that this true inner happiness can only be found on the inside of our beings through establishing a close, intimate, personal relationship with the Lord. There is no other way! Nothing in this life will give us this kind of true inner happiness.

However, many Christians are not finding this true inner happiness. The Bible talks about it, the preachers talk about it on Sunday, but many are still not finding it. Why? Once you get saved, that is just the beginning.

God expects you to grow, develop and mature in your walk with Him. Many Christians are missing out on this sanctification-transformation process that is available to them through the power of the Holy Spirit. This sanctification process is what will really lead you into true inner happiness and true inner fulfillment that everyone is looking for these days.

However, God is not going to give you a free lunch on this process. You will have to be willing to do your part before God will be willing to do His part.

The Bible tells us that with the measure we use, will be the measure measured back to us. In other words, if we want God’s best, then we have to give Him our best. When it comes to this sanctification-transformation process - we have to give God our best by reading and studying the Word for the changes that He wants to make with us - and then make our own attempt to put on the good and godly qualities that He wants us to have, and then to put away all of the bad and negative qualites that He does not want us to have.

If we give the Lord our best in doing both of the above, then God will give us His best - and God's best will be when He starts to transmit and impart His saintly and godly qualities and attributes right up into the middle of our personalities though the Holy Spirit.

Think about this incredible possibility - that God Himself can literally impart and transmit part of His very nature into our personalities through the Holy Spirit if we are willing to work with Him during this process.

One last point before I give you all of the power verses in other articles showing you the godly and saintly qualities that God will want to try and work into us. Once you read all of the qualities that God would really like to have instilled in us, some of you may get a bit dismayed and distraught after you read what is in these Scripture verses. You may feel overwhelmed, realizing that you may be a long way off in being able to have some of these positive qualites worked and imparted into your personality.

Some Christians read these verses and feel so overwhelmed - they don't even feel it is worth trying for because these ideals just seem to be too high to strive for. The one thing we all have to realize is that every single one of us is flawed to some degree. We all have our character flaws and rough edges. No exceptions. We all have issues that need to be dealt with, and we all need God's transformation-sanctification process to occur in our lives so that the Lord can transform us into the holy righteous saints He really wants all of us to become in Him.

This sanctification process is not done overnight. This is a process that will occur over the rest of your earthly life. If you are willing to work with the Lord in this process, God will then gradually and progressively transform and sanctify you to make you into the kind of person that He really wants you to become in Him.

Your reward for allowing God to do this type of sanctifying-transforming work in your life will be a joy, a peace, a love and a zest for life that you never knew was really possible to obtain in this life. You will find true inner happiness and fulfillment. You will find what everyone else is looking for these days and cannot find, and many people will be drawn to you as a result.

Many nonbelievers have stated that what drew them to certain Christians that ended up getting them saved was the peace, the joy and the love that seemed to be operating through their personalities. They said they were drawn to those personality qualities like a magnet.

Not only will you be more happy and more fulfilled by allowing God to do this with you, but you will also be a joy for others and they will be drawn to the light of God that will be shining through you.

As a result, many people, including other Christians will start asking you what it is that you have. Why are you always so happy and upbeat? How can you have so much peace in your life in this crazy and tumultuous world we now live in? As a result of this kind of inner spiritual transformation, you will be able to lead many more nonbelievers into eternal salvation through Jesus and disciple many other believers into a deeper walk with the Lord.

This sanctification process is available to all believers. God wants to do this with every single one of us. The problem is that many of God’s people are not willing to do their part in it. As a result, the Body has many flakey, hypocritical representatives for God who are doing more harm than good.

They are turning people away from God and Jesus because they are not truly manifesting God’s nature and personality though their own personalities - and this is all due either because God could not properly get the sanctification process started in them due to ignorance and lack of knowledge on their part on how to actually enter into it, or possibly due to open rebellion or stubbornness on their part.

They may not be open to admitting to God what some of their problems and character flaws really are. They may be full of too much pride and arrogance to admit that they have any character flaws that really need to be dealt with, and thus God will not be able to properly reach them to start this sanctification process. As a result, they will end up presenting a haughty, prideful, arrogant and know-it-all witness that will do nothing but turn people off and away from the Lord.

If you decide you really want God to start this sanctification process in you and your life after reading all of the Scripture verses that will be listed in these additional articles - all you have to do is go to God in prayer and tell Him that He has a full and solid green light from you to start this process.

Your job will be:

1. To get into the Word and study the verses that will give you the knowledge on what positive qualities God will want to impart into you and what negative qualites that He will want to take out of you. The verses that will be listed in the articles to follow will go a long way in giving this specific knowledge to you.
    
2. Make the best attempts that you can to "put on" the good, positive and godly qualities that God will want you to have - and then "put away" all of the bad, negative and destructive qualities that He will not want you to have.
    
3. And then be open and sensitive to any communication that you may receive from God and the Holy Spirit on any specific areas They may want to work with you on. God will let you know exactly what these specific areas are going to be and exactly how He wants to deal with each of them.

When this starts to occur, it may be a bit painful at times. It’s hard for many of us to admit to anyone, including ourselves or to God, that we may have problems in certain areas of our personality. But let God do His inner surgery on you and you will be much better off for it in the long run.

Now on to the actual Scripture verses that will arm you with the knowledge that you will need to really enable God to start this sanctification process in you. Remember, the Holy Spirit needs something to work with - and that something is knowledge. These Scripture verses will be giving you this knowledge.

These verses are the major door openers that will get God to start the sanctification process within you - but only if you are willing to seek to put on the good and godly qualities that the Lord would really like for you to have, and then seek to put away all of the negative and destructive qualities that He will not want you to have.

The Scripture verses that will really help you in the renewing of your mind will all follow in the articles that will be listed in this Sanctification section.

 

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Scripture taken from New King James Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.


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