A Renewable Resource -- our Mind!

How can I renew my mind!?  With all the stuff I have been through?

Good question.  YOU can't.  But HE can!

As the Message paraphrase puts it, "you’ll be changed from the inside out."

There are steps here:

1. Do not fit into the world's system, its compromises to the truth.  The willingness to turn your back on the world and its pleasures is vital if we seek God to move into that place within and rescue us.  

Even more, it means continually turning away from the world's ideals. With all the changes about now, those 'worldly' options are increasingly promising us success.  God's light and discernment alone can help us to comprehend if any are 'good and acceptable' options...

2. Be transformed.  You are not able to 'remake' yourself.  That is His work within us, done through grace by Jesus.  It is the greatest miracle of all and totally beyond our reach, AND it is an ongoing work that He does from within.  HE does this!! This is the newness of life He begins in us.

Some believers have so dampened that inner voice, that newness of life, that He cannot be heard in their lives.

Is that where you are? Here is the place for repentance and returning to seek Him and His mercy, that He might continue transforming us.  This is an ongoing work. What is your work in all this?  Returning, repenting, and obeying.

3. Then, and only then, are we able to test anything so that we can discern the will of God for our lives.  There is no automat here.  We might have to cross out lots of options before the right one becomes clear.  

Think of it as a multiple-choice test.  Three of the four are wrong, perhaps.  But the one answer is there for us to discover.

4. Then, we comprehend what is good, acceptable, and perfect in our lives, our service.

Discern what? Which church to join, which service needs your gifts (and serve you must somewhere to follow the Lord's call for us all), and your desire to serve in that area.  For others, which man to marry, or not, where to live, where to work, what field to go into, and all the rest.  Our lives become open to His will.  In a nutshell, how to live.

From my life experience, when I once perceived God's will, I felt drawn to serve Europe, but I was not sure where.  I served in Eastern Europe when it was under the communists, so surely I couldn't live there, could I?  Come to find out, I could.  I crossed out other, more logical options along the way. The Lord finally led me to a wonderful Christian man. And 42 years later, it is (now) obvious how God worked to get me from (my) point A to the impossible dream of (His and my) point B! 

Renewing our minds never ends while we walk this earth.  Maturity brings new light, knowledge of His word, and experience walking with Him transforms our lives, our minds.  I have seen in others and myself these changes, changes for the better.

I like that there are three aspects of His will:  good, acceptable, and perfect. 

Why do you think these three?  Not everything in life is perfect.  We have to be able to accept the challenges, the issues with life that weigh us down, people who berate our faith, lack of health, finance, freedom, or a myriad of other 'better' things lacking in our lives.  'Acceptable' fits many parts of life.  But He is the only one to perfect our lives despite the imperfections from within and those outside our control.  The trials we go through begin that process.

It's our choice.  Be renewed in mind and challenged, or compromise with the world and be destroyed.  We have all seen those who have chosen that way.

And you?

He makes us holy.  He makes us acceptable!