Renew the Mind

By Odon Bulamba

 Imagine living on this earth without the love of God.  God always makes the difference.  Whenever God comes into your life there are changes.  He tries so hard to make you look at His image to become a copy of Him.  When He created Adam and Eve, He said, “let them look like us”.  What does it mean to look like God?  It means only one thing, to live according to His ways.

 

To be a believer, it is a hard task because you have a role to play.  God also has a role to play in your life.  When we are saved, our soul gets saved but not our minds or bodies.  God created Adam and Eve.  After their creation in Gen 2, He then gave them the body.  Previously Adam existed as an image of God (spirit) but then God gave him the body to cover the image.  For that reason, our body is called the temple of God.  After giving Adam the body, God gave him a big responsibility to take care of the garden.  How was he going to take care of the garden?  God gave him intelligence which is the mind. 

 

Romans 12:2, “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.”

Do you want to know Gods will or power?  If so, you need to renew your mind.  When we are saved, most of us believe salvation is enough and everything will work according to what God wants but we still have this responsibility to renew our mind.  This means our mind becomes old and we have to give it a touch up and clean it so it can become new again. 

 

When you were born, you didn’t know about racism and your mind was clean and pure.  You started to grow up and learn both good and bad things.  For that reason Jesus came in front of Nicodemus and said you need to be born again so you can start with a pure mind with me, this is the only way if you want to enter the Kingdom of God. 

 

Many people believe to be born again only means to receive Jesus in your life but that is only one step.  After a child is born we start to teach the child for example, when the mother has the baby, she will be told when to put the baby to bed when to feed the child etc.  The mother will stick on those rules because when you don’t teach the baby those basics while young it will be hard to change the routine of the baby later on. 

 

Most pastors don’t teach about transformation.  After being saved, we need to be transformed and renewed in the mind.  God saves our spirit and soul but not our mind.  Adam had to wake up every morning to take care of the garden.  In the centre of the garden were two trees (1) the tree of the knowledge of good and bad (2) the tree of life.  God told Adam not to eat the fruit and it was now up to Adam to use his brain to decide not to eat it.

 

There is nothing more powerful in your life of Christianity and your physical life as your mind.  If you decide in your mind to do something, you can do it.  My body won’t say no to my mind.  That tool of the mind was given to us by God to transform ourselves and we must make the effort to do it.

 

Many people are praying in church but in their mind they are thinking about other things.  If God could one day show us what we are all thinking during the church service, the church would break down in one day.  You would see we are not in unity and every person is somewhere else. 

 

If you want to know Gods will, renew your mind.  Using his mind, Adam started to know how to take care of the garden and how to control everything.  Using his mind he named all the animals and knew the time of appointment with God was in the evening.  Using his mind, he decided to hide from God after he ate the fruit from the forbidden tree. 

 

Our mind is the battle field because that is the treasure God gave to us and satan knows the only way to mislead the people of God is to play with their mind.  If your mind doesn’t want you to sing or pray or eat, you won’t do it.  The mind is very precious.

 

How to renew your mind?  We all know the prodigal son who went far from his father after collecting his money.  With that money he had joy, sin and entertainment but these things did not satisfy his father.  You and I are on this earth and whatever we do and whatever distance we take from God, He is still waiting for us and he is not satisfied unless he sees us pray and giving him our soul, mind, spirit and body.  When you give God only your spirit and soul but keep your mind and body you become a luke-warm Christian with one foot in Christianity and one in the world.  People forget that God above sees everything.  They have salvation but they live like the people of the world.

 

Romans 12 tells us not to live like the people of the world.  How do they live? They freely sin because it means joy and entertainment.  Those that live a life where their mind lives according to the world, they try to imitate the world but when they come next to Christians they try to live like a Christian. 

 

Transformation doesn’t come by the Holy Spirit or by strength but by a decision.  If you make a decision right now, you will do it.  No one will stop you if you decide to do so.  Some might say, my decision this month is to pray 3x per day.  Once you make that decision, satan will try to change and influence your mind but we who have the power that can even quench the Holy Spirit can easily quench satan.  If you can quench the Holy Spirit, why can’t you control your mind and feelings?  That is the only responsibility God gave to us. 

 

God gave you salvation and your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, therefore don’t conform to people of the world but be transformed.  Transformation is given in concrete examples such as an egg can be transformed to a chicken.  The trees can produce flowers which will be transformed into fruit.  God put all of that around us so we can easily and clearly understand how things work. 

 

For example, this prodigal son reached a point where he said enough is enough and realized he wasn’t supposed to eat the food of pigs and live this lifestyle and made a decision to go back to his father.  He changed his mind.  By changing the mind you can achieve a lot. 

Someone can say today, I love this person, this church, this message and suddenly change their mind and dislike you. 

That tool (the mind) that God gave to us accompanies our faith.  Faith without actions is dead. Our actions are the fruit of our minds.  Your actions always follow your mind.  Where do you set your mind? If you set your mind far away from God, you will become a sinner.  If you set your mind on the Word of God, you will become a mature Christian.  How do you grow up your mind? Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  For example, when Ange made a decision to become a nurse, she went to school as Ange but came out as a nurse.

 

If you use your mind properly, it will be easy to train others and transform your mind.  It will make your faith to become real.  Jesus turned water into wine to show transformation is possible.  When you see transformation in your life you will be satisfied and pleased with yourself.  For example, on the biggest loser there was a man was happy to see how much he had changed.  When I saw him, I thought he still looked big until I saw the past photos of him.  If people could see where you have come, they could understand how much you have been transformed. 

 

We should stop and think from time to time about our old life and how far we have come to see the difference God is making in us.  Many people who lose weight go back to the old weight again because they don’t stick to their decision and they change their mind.  Prepare your mind for the coming back of Jesus.  As we sang, I will never go back again.  The prodigal son came back to the father and the father ran to him and welcomed him back.  You can be the son of God but live far away from God, the Holy Spirit is quenched in you and can’t talk to you anymore because you do everything according to your own style but God is ready to welcome you back again.  All you have to do is make a decision to change your mind.  Pray for God to help you to transform your mind and renew your mind.