Communion of the Renewed and Renovated Minds
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Point: When one believes in Christ His mind is transformed and needs transforming, in order to know the will of God, and serve the will of God. Every Christian is either a conformer or a transformer, living for and/or like the world, or becoming more like Christ.
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In Mathew 17, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on a high mountain, He transfomed before them, and Moses and Elijah appeared with Him (Mt. 17:1-5). This transformation is the same word meaning transfigure or metamorphoo [3339]. Believers are to transfigure as Jesus transfigured before Peter, James, and John…shining like the sun, white as light, holy as God the Father.
This transfiguration is to take place with our minds, our thinking, so that we may discern, know what the good, perfect, and acceptable will of God is.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
The word “renewal” is the word ankainoseos [342] which can also be translated “renovation”. The word “mind” is the Greek word nous [3563]. What Paul means by the use of this word is the seat of one’s emotions and affections, the mode of thinking and feeling, one’s disposition, moral inclination, equivalent to the heart. The Communion of the Saved are to have renovated emotions and affections, renovated thoughts and feelings, renovated disposition and morals. The Saved are to be renewed, to our original intended state, which requires a renovation from our sin state. By believing and accepting Jesus’ grace, we have been purchased, but now I need to be renovated and renewed by the Spirit of God, so that I am holy together as Jesus is Holy and Together.
When Lynnette and I decided to renovate our house in Peace River we changed the interior color, carpet, flooring, and bathrooms. We changed them so that they would be different from what they were, old, warnout, stained, broken, and faded. We wanted to bring a renewal to the old interior of the house. So we renovated the house. When one comes to believe in Jesus and make Him LORD of their lives, we embark on a home renovation of our mind, thoughts, affections, emotions, disposition, and morals. The Spirit comes to live within the believer, and guides the believer to make renovations to their inner person (Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 6:19).
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
These inner renovation projects are purposed to transform, or transfigure us, into the likeness of Christ (which is the process of sanctification…becoming Holy, or holy redeemed). The Spirit leads, we listen, and submit to allow and do. This is what it means to “walk in the Spirit”, to submit to His lead, His renovation upon your mind and heart. These ‘renovation’ projects are meant to produce “fruit” that is so different than from the way we once were (Gal 5:22). If we were mean - kind, aggressive - gentle, anxious - peace, depressed - joyful, hateful - loving, defeated - hopeful, impatient - patient, faithless - faithful, impulsive - self-controlled (Gal. 5:22-23). Paul tells us that those who belong to Christ have “crucified the flesh with it’s passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, we must follow the Spirit” (Gal. 5:24-25).
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
How is it that Yassir, a Sudanese Muslim, could love the Jews? Only through Jesus (Yashua), and the renovated heart of a Jew and a Muslim. Zachariah prayed for Yassir, who brutalized him and left him for dead, “because you hated me so much, I was always praying for you”. Zachariah choose to do as Jesus would do and instructed, this is the spirit and mind of a renovated follower of Christ (a Jew).
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Yassir, was a brutal man, raised upon the teachings of the Koran, to kill Jews, now a pastor of Jesus, laments and feels shame and guilt as he is confronted by the man that he brutalized. His statement, “To love those who hate you, you need someone whose name is Jesus”. To have a renovated heart you need Jesus! To be renewed you need the Spirit, and to follow the guidance of the Spirit. How do you allow the Spirit to renew you? You engage in the washing of the Word. 2 Tim 3:16-17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
He saved us — not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus.
You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
The Ephesians were taught the words of Jesus and they were acting like the World (Gentiles). They were not doing the work of washing themselves in the words and will of Jesus, so they began to become conformed to the world they lived in. Their understanding was becoming darkened, and they were becoming alienated from God, and therefore from true life. Why? Because of their ignorance and hard hearts concerning the importance of listening to the Words of Jesus! In our case, listening to, reading, and applying the commands and will of Jesus. We know we are ignoring the Words and will of Jesus when our sensitivity to the Spirit disappears! When the desire to spend time in the Scriptures, allowing the Spirit of God to speak to us, wanes for the ways of impurity.
Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.
They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ!
I know my mind and heart need renewal and renovation when I lose my patience, when my anger gets the best of me, when I allow the little things to throw off my mood for the day. I know I need to get back to the Word, back to communion with Holy Spirit, and back to the disciplines that enable me to put off my old self and my former ways of life and living. If I am having a bad day, I know my walk with Holy Spirit is lacking. The word ‘sensitivity’ [524] here means to be void of feeling past honor or shame. I am drawn to abandon myself to my old ways, my old habits, because I have become void or empty to my past shame of sin; I have become empty to my past honor of my salvation, my saving. I have feel void of the honor that Jesus has bestowed upon me, His grace, His love, His mind, His faithfulness, His trust. The Believer needs to be constantly washed in the Word because we become insensitive to the grace of Jesus. How is my sensitivity to Christ? Holy Spirit? My sensitivity is directly related to the amount of dust on my Bible, the amount of time spent with the Spirit of God, the amount of time spent following the ways of the world. Renovations take time, they do not tend to happen in a minute, an hour, or even a day…good ones anyway.
How is my mind? How is my heart? How much time am I spending in needed renovation and renewal? It’s not up to God to change it, it is up to us to change our focus.
Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
The Apostle Paul uses the phrase “Put on your new nature” (Col 3:10). In fact, he uses the same terms six times in a matter of one passage: put to, put on (3x), put away, and put off. These terms indicate action on our behalf, since we have been raised with the Messiah (raised from above), seek what is above, set your minds on what is above, for you have died and your life is hidden in the Messiah (Col. 3:1-4). Therefore, “put to death what belongs to the worldly nature”, “put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language”, “put off the old self”, and instead “put on the new self”, “put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, acceptance and forgiveness”, and “put on love”, “put on peace”, “put on gratitude”, “put on the Word” (Col 3:5-17). This is what it means to live in the Communion of the Saints (or the Saved).
Have you and I put on our new nature? Have we put to death our old nature? Have we done it today? Will we do it tomorrow? It is something that we need to be constantly aware of and doing, because it is a daily walk, a daily battle, this road of sanctification, this road of righteousness, this journey to become like Christ, and the enemy does not want you to cross the finish line. He wants you and I to fail, to give up, to not even enter the blocks. The easy task is embracing God’s grace and faith in Jesus, the hard work is staying in communion with Him. All that matters should be Christ!
How much transforming activity are you engaged in? If you and I were to be in the presence of God, like Moses was, would I need to shield my face from others today? Is there such a glow, a joy, a presense of peace, that others would take notice? Each of us should take the time to reflect upon this question and answer it honestly. If it is anything short of a yes, we need to spend more time in the presence of God the Holy Spirit in prayer and meditation in the Scriptures, because that is where God speaks, and where God transforms one’s heart and mind. Where we develop the spiritual sensitivity to our reality that we walk in…children and heirs of and with Christ!
How does one come to know the will of God is? How does one know what God desires? When one pursues the transformation of one’s thinking back to it’s original intended state. When we engage in renewal and renovation with Holy Spirit. That means not forgetting about God or setting our mind against the knowledge of God. God’s judgment against Israel, and the nations, is that man has forgotten about God; even intentionally set his mind against the knowledge of God.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
When one decides not to engage in the transforming activities of the Spirit, we actively suppress the truth of God, we no longer identify and stand with the Communion of the Redeemed. We engage in unrighteousness and act as the world acts. We become insensitive to God and His Spirit. Jesus merely becomes someone we know of, not one that we truly have a relationship with. The exterior of the house may look great, but how valuable is a house that has a broken foundation inside? What is a reality on the inside, eventually comes to be revealed on the outside, it just does. God is no fool, He is not fooled by our exteriors, He knows our interior condition through and through.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Man looks for and models himself after a King Saul, but God values a man like David, who had a heart after God’s own. Kings were instructed, by God, to write down their own copy of the Torah, in the presence of God’s priests, so that they could meditate on it every day. Why? Scripture says, so that they may learn to fear the LORD and obey all His commands and decrees. So that he would not turn aside from God’s ways, so that it may go well for him and his family, and live long in his kingdom. So that he may not think of himself as better than the rest.
When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests.
It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes,
that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
King Saul represents the fallen spiritual condition of man. He is the chosen of God, by God, that became corrupted by forgetting God, ignoring His Word and commandments. Restoration and renewal needed to happen, so God anointed, chose a new man to be king, David, who would not forget God by ignoring His Word and commandments. As a result, the spiritual, as well as the physical and emotional fortunes of Israel prospered. Renovation and renewal came and God brought refreshing to all of Israel. But as soon as David and Israel forgot God, moved away from the primacy of God’s word and will, God brought correction and allowed chastening. David lost a child, lost His rule, lost family, lost his authority to rule. But even when he messed up, God restored him, renewed his strength, his rule, when he returned to the primacy of God’s rule and command in His life. When his mind and heart became once again one with God’s word and will.
The Communion of the Saved are commited to being renewed and renovated by God. They are commited to the priority of Jesus being number one in their lives by living as He lived, and following the practices He followed. They refuse to be conformed to the world, but instead concentrate on being transformed as Jesus was transformed at His transfiguration. When one believes in Christ His mind is transformed and continues to need transforming, in order to know the will of God, and serve the will of God. Every Christian is either a conformer or a transformer, living for and/or like the world, or becoming more like Christ. Who will we choose to be today? A conformer or a transformer? Conformed or transformed? I can only be transformed if I am conforming to the Word and will of God, by following, actively submitting to the Holy Spirit. Motivations and hearts can only be changed by submitting to the Word and will of Christ. You may be a Yassir, you may be a Zechariah, but the world, your world, can only change for the better if you truly come to know and follow Jesus. Renovation and renewal happen no other way in order to enter in and live in the Kingdom of God. Amen.