Changing Your Mind

Notes from Fred:

Sunday was a wonderful day, as we began exploring our Wellness Ministry – beginning with wellness for our minds.

And we heard the exciting news that we will be “made well” by beginning in two weeks (January 29) on a Walk to Jerusalem….

Changing Your Mind

On Sunday, we began opening our lives to greater wellness by changing our minds – by trusting God to be the changer, by turning away from the patterns of our culture; by connecting and memorizing God’s Word; and by testing God’s Word by seeing and serving the lives of those who need us to live His Word. (Romans 12:1-2)

In summary:

1. Medical science has relatively recently confirmed that we live healthier, more satisfying, and longer lives, when our mind, body, and spirit are all healthy and working together. The Bible has proclaimed this truth for thousands of years through many verses, summarized best in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians: “You will receive peace and the whole life God wants for you, if you will be fit in your mind, body, and spirit” – and God offers His light and guidance for how this can come true for us.
2. We began our journey this week to receive God’s light and guidance for wellness, beginning with our minds. For our minds determine the health of our bodies, spirits, lives, and relationships. Our minds are the doorway to what enters our lives, and what comes out. Proverbs says: “As a person thinks, so shall they be, so shall they live.”
3. Paul begins our journey to wellness for our minds with his words in the first two verses in Chapter 12 of his letter to the Romans. He calls for us to submit our bodies as a “living sacrifice to God,” to be transformed by the changing of our minds – which, God promises, will lead to lives that are filled with what is good, pleasing, and perfect – which means “complete” with all that God wants for us when we submit our minds to Him: The gifts of His Spirit of love, joy, peace and more….
4. These words from Paul offer us a recipe for Wellness – through the answers to three questions. The First Question is this: Are we willing to risk submitting our lives to God, to be transformed by the changing of our minds; that God will deliver on His promise of what is good, pleasing, complete? Paul encourages us to say, “Yes,” by the first word of our Scripture: “Therefore”!
5. With that word, Paul directs us back to the first 11 chapters of his letter, through which he reminds us of what God has done for us: While we were sinners, Jesus died for us to take away our sins, to forgive us in order to give us a new start each day; God works for good for us in all things; He loves us no matter what we have thought, said or done… Therefore, will you risk God transforming your life by changing your mind? In our “everyday life” the answer would be yes to a parent, teacher, Pastor, who loves us and has done great things for us. The encouragement to answer “Yes’” is even more so with God, who loves us even more and has done even greater things for us.
6. If we will answer, “Yes,” to trust God to change our minds, then we are ready for the Second Question: What is the path for being transformed by the changing of our minds – and receiving what is good, pleasing, and complete? Paul responds: close your mind to the patterns of our culture, to the desires for money, popularity, power, prestige, comfort, conformity, anger, greed, pride, self-centered lives…  Instead, open your mind to the ways of the will of God, which Paul lists later in Chapter 12: Give to and serve the poor; offer mercy and forgiveness cheerfully; honor others above yourselves; associate with people of low position; love with unflagging zeal; pray for those who persecute you; overcome evil with good….
7. All of these ways turn our minds away from ourselves and to others. This is why these ways will give us healthier minds and transform our lives – Because this is our DNA, the essence of who we are, children of God with His DNA in our veins; this is the DNA of the one perfect human, Jesus, who gave everything for us. This means that when we let the ways of our culture into our minds, we are letting in a foreign organism that infects us like a cancer, spreads from our minds to our lives, and will destroy us. The only antidote is to turn your mind to the ways of God, then your mind will be made well, and your life will be filled with what is good, pleasing, and complete.
8. But this leaves us with the Third Question: How can our minds be closed to the self-serving ways of our culture and open to the other-centered ways of Jesus? The first way is to be connected every day to God’s Word, to discuss it with others – and memorize the Words that speak to you! Neuroscientists have discovered that memorized words cut a grove in our brains and become part of who we are. Then these words will come to us when we need them.
9. Memorized Words of God will not only guide our lives, but will save our lives. Listen to the story on our website of Quincy Collins, who was a prisoner in North Vietnam for seven years, and testifies that Words of God that he memorized as a child (eg., “The Lord is my shepherd”) kept his sanity and saved his life. God’s Words grooved in our minds will arm us to face the trials and temptations we all face in life – and will enable our lives to be filled with what is good, pleasing, and complete.
10. Yet God’s Word alone will not transform our lives by changing our minds, if we only read, discuss, memorize, and use them when they help us. That is clear from looking at our world and seeing that so many Christians reflect the deadly ways of our culture. But Paul shows us the one step more to change our minds – “Test and approve God’s will…” Do the ways of God described by Paul – seeing and touching our brothers and sisters who need God’s Word lived out in us.
11. We looked at a video that showed us others in need, and asked us, “What are you waiting for?” to serve them and let our minds and lives be changed as we do. We heard the story of a friend of mine whose mind was not healthy, who was depressed, but whose mind was changed when he was convinced to go to the Congo and serve the least of God’s children. His mind came back filled with the other-centered, other-serving ways of God. His whole life has been changed; in his own words: “I am a different person, I am a so much happier person…”
12. What are we waiting for? Do we want our lives to be transformed by the changing of our minds? Then fill your mind with God’s Word, and fill your life with doing His Word for those who need His Word lived out in us – and experience, as you do, a life that is filled with what is good, pleasing, and complete!

Connection for the Week: List the ways of God in Romans 12:9-21; list beside them the opposites that you may be experiencing in your life; memorize the “God way” that is the antidote for “your way”; let God lead you to someone who needs that particular “God way” lived out in you; and see what happens to your mind and your life as you do.