Whole New Mind

NOtes

good, pleasing, perfect—correspond good, beautiful, truth

cf this not that—world vs God- but even more poignant—schematic of the world (blueprint—pressing this, squeezing that—here’s what we think works, so get into this box; don’t like this one, go try that one…; but the other thing is squeezed from outside vs. re-created from the inside (pic?)

fresh start again—sucj great power for change of life by change of mind—note the definitio of repentance--”after-thinking”)

practical thinking and living is the most spiritual worship—see so many people who have such emotionally driven and dramatic worship, but then live in ways that directly contradict teh THINKING and ACTIVITY that belongs to a spiritual person—too often I have heard well-intentioned talking about being more spiritual by being less intellectual—that’s one of the most unspiritual approahes you could choose. It’s shallow and reckless. You need NEW thinking, not NO thinking. (this is about active but also it’s about extreme)

discern—inspect—what’s necessary is the ability to know God’s will—this requires inspection—the issue is that our inspection faculty needs to be “renewed”—I test with my mind, so I need to have renewal of mind to have legitimate testing faculty—the better my capacity to test the better my preparation to decide well

inspection, schematic vs metamorphao (squeeze vs generate), good-pleasant-perfect, renew? (comparison to new cells—somehow same yet brand new—same purpose, new resource)

Intro

The capacity of the human mind stuns me. With the human mind we have looked deep inside the cell and mapped the entire human genome-the DNA strands that govern everything from fingerprints to f__ to the shape of your face. WIth that same mind we have looked millions of light years into space and mapped out constellations that contain often billions of blazing balls 100 times the size of our sun

The human mind has...

And the brain that contains it all is no less fascinating. It’s a mass oc 86 billion cells that weighs around 3 lbs. And even though for the average person it amounts to only 2% of our body weight, it consumes a whopping 20% of the body’s energy and 20% of your oxygen intake. There are 10,000 specific and distinct types of neurons (the things that convey impusles of thoughts and information) win the brain—a tiny piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand can contain 100,000 of these neurons, and 1 billion synaptic connecting points—constantly firing electro-chemical communication. And although the average person’s brain isn’t fully finished growing until age 25, the average 2-year-od’s brain is already 80% there.It generates a small amount of elevtrical power, only enough to power a 20W bulb, but it moves info a through this neural network at a blazing 268 MPH—so while it can maybe power a small flashlight, it can think at a higher speed than a formula 1 race car. ANd those thoughts—50,000 of them each day.

But in spite of all this magnificence, I also need to report something that might be slightly disturbing. You may have heard that your body completely renews itself every 7-10 years, depending on the source. As the story goes, each cell in your body only lasts for so long, and after a while, it dies and gives way to a replacement. So each cell copies itself and the new one takes over for the old one. So the idea is that within that 7-10 year tome frame, every cell in your body has done that. Which is sort of true, but the time frame is off. Your entire body DOES remake itself one cell ata time, over and over. BUt the 7 year thing? NOt hardly. White bllod cells only last a year. REd blood cells, 4 months. Skin cells last an average of 3-4 weeks. And down there donig the hard work of teh colon, those give up in just a few days! Life is hard, the struggle is real!

BUt the brain cells? They’re yours for a lifetime! You don’t get those constant replacements. REsearch is not final, but it’s possible you get a very small number of new cells each day. That happens only in the region of memory. Which will be good news to many of you if you don’t forget. So with an organ so potent and so central to life every day, why is it that in God’s infinite wisdom, he gives you a new everything else all along, but the brain you’ve got is the one you’ve got to keep.

I think it’s this—because it is so central to life, its capacity for reneawal is actually greatyer than all the rest of your body. BUt the kind of renewal that the brain needs doesn’t happen automatically. It’s not teh physical material of the brain that needs renewal, it’s the processing of the mind. The brain is the organ in your body where thinking happens. The mind is tcollection of thinking that you do. And the amount of mind renewal that you experience is up to you.

The good news and the bad news is exactly teh same news—it has an almost limitless capacity. The question becomes, what are you doing with it. Its potential for accomplishing good things is immense. So is its potential for doing dumb things.

The process of steasily growing into better and better things that help you move into the fullness of the life God meant for you is a process of mind renewal. And when comes to a whole new you, the things going on in your mind are absolutely going to show us powerfully in the things that are going on in your life.

Looking at

** He goes on to describe new approaches that don’t come naturally, and sometimes don’t come easily, but are in fact the very things that get you to better places. See when you were born again by receiving Jesus into your life, one of the things that happened is that a new think happened in uyour mind— “renewed in the spirit of your mind”—that is, now thos thinking things that happen inside yoru human brain are somehow affected by the presence of the Holy Spirit, depending upon how much you put into this spiritual renewal process. The renewal of your body happens automatically—the renewal by this spiritual process in your mind happens as much as you put into this.

the list of things includes new ways of handling relationship problems, new ways of …, new …, new...

Each of these culminates with this--”do not be overcome...”

If you would rather see a lot more overcoming …, you will need to do what actually accomplishes that. And doing different means thinking different—about what is happening and about what to do about it.

Hopefully this will come as good news to you—you and God both agree about wanting the best for your life. Here, look at how He describes it--

good—what accomplished the right things

pleasing—what is designed to leave you with the most fulfilling experience ultimately (think best aftertaste)

perfect—ideally designed to match the real, healthy you—think c pair of pants that you put on that were mafe just for your body

*** God’s will is for you to experience this—and even when it comes in hard times, it still does good things.

Experiencing God’s good WILL is about making good DECISIONS that match that will. the best results are in the best decisions. Like an oak tree packed into an acorn, consequences are packed into choices, whether desirable or undesirable.

So God’s desire is this—God wants your mind to be conditioned to decide according to God’s good will for you.

BUt think about your life—you need better outcomes so you need better decisions. You’ll gain better dcisions as you do better mind things—thinking, understanding, forecasting, concluding, deducing, discerning, etc. And that will happen with mind renewaing.

THink of it this way—you need a new mind that thinks differently in order to decide differentlly and arrive differently

*** my car—2012… GPS old maps...

some places aren’t there… others not wheer once were...

evrtire roads...

it’s active

it’s intentional

it’s extreme submission (Cf “living sacrifice”--”Lord, you’ve got it all!”)—i’m all-in, Lord, so in order to give you all my thinking, I’m going to give you all my living…)

Intro-

mind / brain

Romans 12:1–2 ESV

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 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.

Info-

All about experincing different outcomes. Whole next portion will describe new approaches to life. In context of life where people are very different, how to build a better environment with honor, humility, service, zael, joy, patience, generosity, hospitality, empathy, being agreeable with disagreeable people, obeying authorties, caring for others’ concerns…A HOST OF THINGS THAT WOULD CHANGE THE WORLD IF WE ALL DID THEM. Jesus’s concerns has been that we can’t wait for everynbody to do things this way for us to do things this way. That’s part of the Kingdom of God strategy—win people with the diffreences that faith works in life!!

The problem? It’s so unnatural to do things like this. Natural is to give what you’ve been given

matt 5:

Matthew 5:44–48 ESV

44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

SO somehow, I must approach the same situation in a different way—but not just different from others—different from what I once did.

*** If I want different outcome, i need a different approach!

I will never choose a different approach without changing my mind about the approach i’ve always taken!

If i want new outcomes, i need new thinking

THUS—new mind

Will of God (or any)—about choices and decisions--

The same old thinking will never get new outcomes because it will still make the same old decisions.

Cf Pilot GPS outdated

*** Way of thinking becoems a template--”test and approve”—we already do that--”that makes no sense; that makes sense;

Issue—old ways of thinking will make all the old sense—if you know everything, nothing left

Two parts--

information

perspective

*** These become template. Must ask question—are these where they need to be?

Philippians 3:15 ESV

15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

SO— will is good, pleasing, perfect--

why wouldn’t you already be choosing this? Because according to template, doesn’t seem...

Real problem isn’t failure of testing—it’s misguided or misinformed testing mechanism

That’s conform / transform--

two big distinctions—God vs world and squeeze vs change from within

CF inspection (tag in pocket)—you have an inner inspector—but if inspector is misinformed, outcome will be misguided

*** God says—need to upgrade your inspector—and this is progressis—everything that passes the test today becomes part of inspection tomorrow--

** THinking is cumulative

*** the more I get new GPP, the more effective my testing process. The mroe I miss GPP, the worse I will be at inspecting thoughts, attitudes, decisions, dispositions—I routinely see well-meaning people making terrible decisions—broken GPP

I’m one of them—still haven’t arrived—and so are you

So we are called into this process of renewal of mind--

1- Must get active in gaining information (God information—problem with knowing new things is knowing current things that miss new things) God’s Word is powerful—Hebrews--

Hebrews 4:12 ESV

12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

** Go to the parts you don’t usually go to. Take things you think are finished and let them be questioned / informed by new things; be open to correction

2- Must get intentional about better perspective—so often issue is not information, it’s viewpoint—this is what accumulates.

MOve from information to emphasis—what do you spend time dwelling on—anything that gets your emphasis limits your perspective—this is how sincere people who follow Jesus often go astray--

It’s about mindset—regular emphasis creates mindset that often doesn’t help--

the key to mindSET is mindSIT—whatever your mind sits in will become your mindset

Psalm 1:1 ESV

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

3- Must get extreme in surrendering life—note mind-body connection—we often see mind / body connection, but works the other way—still things in life tolerate—especially agendas—what you’re after—this leaves you prone to certain thinking patterns. But if your agenda becomes God’s agenda...

*** Her this--

often “spirit” verses “mind” because God’s ways...

But God wants to renew mind, not exclude it

you need NEW thinking not NO thinking

“I will sing with...”

“renewed in spirit of mind...”

Power of God isn’t in curcumventing mind, it’/s in redeemnig it—God didn’t give you that marvellous brain to ignore—but wnts to transform thinking gfoing on inside...

New handds come fro new mind

new ears...

new eyes...

new decisions...

new influence

new effectiveness...