Renewing The Mind (Part Two) - Retrain Your Brain

Earlier this week I was listening to a cultural arts program on BBC Radio 4 where the theme was 'the purpose of controversial theatre'.

One of the guests, himself a producer of such plays, said that he saw the role of the theatre as the opposite to that of the church. In church, he said, you have come to have your beliefs reaffirmed, whereas a theatre was a place you go to have your assumed beliefs challenged.

It made me think. Is that really what church is like?

Perhaps this producer of plays needs his assumed beliefs about church to be challenged?

Now to be fair there is some part truth in what he says. I think some of the purpose of church gathering together is to affirm truth where we find it in the Word and reflected in each other. It also lets us know that we're not alone in our apparent lunacy.

But what seems to be neglected in this view is that we are also coming together to be challenged and changed under the truth of the word of God. There seems to be an assumption in the instruction to renew our minds that we will all have mindsets and approaches that are based not on the truth but on our own understanding of the world, wherever that has come from, inevitably tainted by sin.

We are told by Paul that

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.~ 2 Cor 4:4

It would be foolish to assume that when we come to believe in Christ that all of our 'darkened thinking' is instantly changed into illuminated truth. The truth does set us free, but getting to grips with the truth (becoming free indeed) is often a process that takes time.
Sometimes the cell is unlocked, but we like to sit there a while before we get up and leave. And sometimes even prisons can make us feel secure in their familiarity. But the devil we know is surely not better than the God who beckons us to know him,  to receive new minds and hearts.

Part of the reason I believe Paul tells us not to give up meeting together is because we rely on one another for growth. And, when I say growth, that can often mean pruning. Firstly, to walk with other believers will almost definitely throw us against each other, causing us to have some rough edges knocked off (if we approach it with the a right heart). This is part of the process of iron sharpening iron (as the scripture has it). And so as well as being affirmed in the truth, we can also be challenged by our fellow believers. Sometimes by their understanding and sometimes by their behaviour. In both cases we should be rebounding from these encounters onto the Word of God, returning there to 'judge our hearts' and to receive instruction.

 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. ¹³ Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.~Heb 4:12-13

We come to church not just for the fellowship and worship, but also to sit under the word. For those not versed in the jargon, that means to listen to the preaching and to submit ourselves to the authority of the words of God found in the scriptures. This is why it is so integral to attend a church where the preaching is based on and bedded in the bible.

The word of God is called 'The Sword of the Spirit' in Ephesians 6, the famous passage on the armour of God. The Sword of the Spirit seems to me to have two implied meanings. Firstly that it is our Sword for fighting the enemy with, (and it is a spiritual weapon).

But the other meaning of that title is that it is the sword belonging to The Spirit. In other words the Word of God is the sword that the Holy Spirit himself wields as a weapon. He also uses it for surgery, as we have seen in the Hebrews text. Penetrating and dividing soul and spirit, judging our hearts.

If the Word is preached faithfully then metaphorically the carpets of our churches (If you attend a church whose building has them) should resemble the floor of a butchers, or a surgeons bin. As God dissects our hearts and reconstructs them closer to his own.

My First point is this, that renewing of minds must take place in the context of Jesus centred community.
The kind of growth that takes place without accountability and encouragement is largely not the growth that the gospel gives. Your first step to a renewed mind, once you have believed in the Lord Jesus and repented of your sins, is to get yourself planted in a bible believing, Jesus centred, loving community. If you have these three elements you cant go far wrong. But you need them all (and they are all intrinsic to each other).

And come humbly to learn and to unlearn, and ask God to show you where your thinking needs to change.

Free your mind and your behind will hopefully follow.

 

 

 

Renewing The Mind (Part One) - Do Something.

I have been thinking a lot about transformation recently, and how it is achieved.

A few years ago I was talking to another Christian, then in his 80s about sanctification; the on-going process of becoming more holy. Scripture seeming to suggest that we would go 'from glory to glory'. Myself then approaching 40 (or possibly having not long reached it) I was beginning to despair of ever seeing any of the transformation that I had sincerely expected to see in my Christian walk back when I was in my early 20's.

I asked this gentleman, a man I had long looked up to because of his commitment and devotion and general apparent Godliness, what his experience of sanctification was in his 80s, hoping to hear that it does indeed get better!

His answer quite staggered me. (Though it really shouldn't have).

He said, 'To be honest, I've completely given up'.

I felt a little winded by that, I have to say. But by my own experience and lack of progress in this area, I can see why at his age he had probably abandoned hope of being changed from glory to glory, until he was actually IN GLORY.

I can tell you that the brother in question, a little while after this did actually experience some major renewal, and that gave me hope again but I never forgot how flat that conversation left me.

But I have to say that my hope of sanctification was really no hope. Because without meaning to, it was really based on the premise that I didn't have to work at it. I just sort of expected God to change me.

He certainly has changed me but I am coming to believe that he has put much of the agency for that change in my own hands.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a good reformed boy and I certainly do not believe in a sanctification by works but I am coming to believe that, as he allows us and draws us by his grace, he is calling us  to partner with him in our transformation. Why else all that instruction about sowing to the Spirit there in Galatians?

What we sow, we reap. If I sow only to the sinful nature I reap from that nature destruction....but if I sow to the Spirit, I will reap the fruit of the Spirit; Love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

Now to take you to the verse that is the starting point for this series. Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

There are two instructions. A negative and a positive.

1. Do Not Conform

The default setting is conformity, whether we like it or not. If we conform and go along unquestioningly with the crowd, following this world and it's aspirations and philosophies and indulgent life style, transformation for us is never-never land. It's pie in the sky when you die. But you'll never become what God has called you to be here and now. It counteracts our very own prayers when we ask God 'your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is heaven'. We shouldn't just pray that and then act as if we didn't belong to him. If you conform you die. Because you are sowing to the sinful nature that loves an easy life and avoids challenge at all costs. And you will reap from that nature destruction. I know because I am largely describing myself.

2. Be Transformed.

There is an implicit understanding that you are the curator of your own transformation here, as you join with the Holy Spirit (sowing into what he is doing in and around and through you. And as a result he brings about fruit in your life. How can we be commanded to be transformed if it was not possible to do so. And even better than that, he tells us how. By the renewing of your mind.

In this series I want to explore what it means for us to renew our minds, and to have renewed minds. But I think we can be hugely encouraged that there is something we can do about it. It's tough and it's going to take a lot of work and a certain amount of discipline (and no discipline is pleasant at the time but later on, if learnt from, produces a harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it) but we can do it with the help and the grace of God.