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Spirit-Led Identity Change

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8. Renewed and Transformed

The Spirit of Your Mind

That you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

(Ephesians 4:22-24)

As we persevere in our walk with the Lord, we discover and embrace His way of thinking, acting, and feeling. I believe that Paul uses the phrase “renewed in the spirit of your mind” to refer to this. It is a synecdoche, which is a fancy word which means he is using a part of something to refer to the whole of it. The spirit of your mind refers to more than just our mind; it refers to the whole of our inner being. (The Bible uses synecdoche – the part for the whole – often. For example, when it says, “I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians” in Judges 6:9, it is not saying that He had delivered the Israelites from the appendages at the end of the Egyptians’ arms. The part – the hand – refers to the whole – the Egyptians.)

The Holy Spirit leads us into the reality of putting off our old man (our old way of thinking, acting, and feeling) to put on the new man (God’s way of thinking, acting, and feeling). Our mind, will, and emotions – both spirit and soul – are gradually renewed and transformed. We walk into the worked-out reality of our new identity in Christ.

We find a similar thought in Romans 12, which I believe also uses the word ‘mind’ to refer to our entire inner being.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

(Romans 12:1-2)

As we give ourselves like a living sacrifice to God, He transforms all of our inner life to reflect His glory. This obviously involves more than simply renewing our thinking, although that is extremely important – so important that the phrase “reasonable service” emphasizes it. But if all that changed was our thinking, our will would be unaffected, leaving our actions sinful. So the renewing must also affect our will. And if we dig a little deeper, we see it must also affect our emotions. Without them, we would be unable to put on traits like tender mercy (Colossians 3:12) and compassion (1 Peter 3:8). So the part (our mind) refers to the whole (our entire inner being).

The word ‘prove’ in Romans 12:2 is interesting. It is the Greek word ‘dokimazo,’ which means to “to test (literally or figuratively), by implication, to approve.”^[19] As the Spirit of God renews our hearts, it becomes possible for us to test His will in our experience. We put it into practice, see how it works, and discern what it is about. We try it out and prove that it is good and acceptable, and we approve of what we have experienced.

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The Holy Spirit Speaking to Our Mind, Will, and Emotions

Through all of this, the Holy Spirit leads us. We grow to discern His voice as He enlightens us in many ways (through the written and preached word, through circumstances, through obviously prophetic experiences, …). His insights might show up in any part of our being. For example, we may discern the Lord giving understanding to our mind:

Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.

(2 Timothy 2:7)

Growing in understanding is not always an obviously prophetic experience. It may be as simple as looking at many scriptures and seeing how they fit together to form a doctrine. Or if we are perplexed about our lives or the lives of others, we may suddenly find we have an understanding of how the truth of the Bible applies to us. We may not be sure how we gained this understanding, but because the Bible tells us that the Lord gives understanding, we choose to believe that He is the one who helped us to see more clearly.

For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;

(Proverbs 2:6)

God can also speak to us by empowering our will to follow Him.

…that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; (emphasis added)

(Colossians 1:10-11)

In this case, we find ourselves enabled to follow Jesus in ways we previously couldn’t. We have a patience, a joy, or whatever else we need for the task at hand. As with growth in understanding, this enablement is not always obviously prophetic; it may simply be that we prayed for help and then found it. It is as if we have crossed some unseen barrier and now have greater freedom to do what God wants. Nevertheless, we conclude that the power didn’t come from us, so we trust that the Spirit has moved.

In the same way, God can speak to our emotions. This is often more obviously prophetic, because it may involve a feeling that He is with us and is touching us. My experience in chapter 4 of this book is an example of God touching my emotions in a way that was obviously prophetic. I felt the fear of the Lord and knew that He was doing something in my heart.

At other times, however, I haven’t been able to tell for sure whether what I was feeling was from Him. This was especially true when I mourned and expressed pain.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

(Matthew 5:4)

I had avoided mourning for years, because it felt unspiritual. When I mourned, I felt angry and sorrowful. How could God be in that? Yet I eventually discerned the leading of the Holy Spirit <page 38>as I sensed His comfort and help reaching out to me during times when I felt these emotions. Then as He worked in me, I found that He transformed my anger and sorrow into forces for good in my life. They became part of an abiding wisdom that transformed my experience.

The Holy Spirit touches our entire inner being, and this enables us to test and approve the acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2).

The Mind of Christ

In time, the work of the Holy Spirit becomes a normal part of our lives. In a sense, the supernatural almost feels “natural” for us. We have been reshaped to think, act, and feel like Him. This is true when we feel prophetic, and it is true when we don’t. It is true when we sense a clear direction, and it is true when we are struggling to find our way. Our spirit and soul have adopted the habit of humbly relying on Him throughout the day. The thoughts we think are based on years’ worth of His word and Spirit reshaping us. The actions we take are based on spiritual wisdom we have gained through following Him day after day. Being a follower of Jesus feels less out of place for us; it has more become “who we are” – our new identity.

I don’t mean by this that we do not need to be alert. We will never be perfect in this life (Philippians 3:12), and we will always need to take heed lest we fall (1 Corinthians 10:12). Nevertheless, we have developed an inner spirit and soul that seeks God’s grace for our imperfections more subconsciously than when we were younger. To use a phrase that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians, we have the mind of Christ. We think, act, and feel according to His work within us.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. …For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

(1 Corinthians 2:12, 16)

Our mind, will, and emotions become more accurate reflections of His mind, will, and emotions; this is the fruit of being consistently led by the Holy Spirit. Our character is rearranged to reflect His character. He is the hope of glory within us (Colossians 1:27), and He has transformed us into an expression of His glory.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

(2 Corinthians 3:18)

Knowing Jesus

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ

(Philippians 3:7-8)

I gave my life to Jesus over fifty years ago. The process of giving up my own ways and walking in God’s was often so upsetting to me that I struggled to not compromise or give up.

<page 39>What kept me moving forward?

Some might think that it was a desire for earthly rewards – and I have certainly received many of them. When I consider what my life would have been like without Him, I suspect that my sins would have killed me by the time I was forty years old. And in the process, I likely would have first done severe damage to my family, my career, and just about every other part of my life.

Yet I don’t believe that earthly rewards, by themselves, could have motivated me to live as I have. I remember what it felt like to deny myself …and sometimes it felt cruel. It seemed wrong that a loving God would ask me to walk through it. I was tempted to see Jesus as a false god who demanded too much while helping too little. If I was looking for earthly rewards, I could have easily concluded that I would rather live in sinful bliss for a few years than to spend a lifetime experiencing the slow death I was enduring.

You might then reason that maybe it was fear of eternal punishment and desire for heavenly rewards, and this is closer to the truth. After the encounter I mentioned in chapter 4 of this book, I was terrified of God’s wrath (in a controlled sort of way), but I don’t believe this fully explains my survival. Fear of hell and a desire for heaven, by themselves, gave me some wisdom, but in the face of my human weakness, they also gave me a strong reason to conclude that the Bible was wrong. The pressure of living with eternity in view seemed out of touch with human nature. It was too steep a price to pay. I had to give up parts of myself that I treasured, and I lacked the wisdom to do that well at first. The whole experience could have motivated me to conclude that the God of the Bible wasn’t real.

Another possible reason to stay with Jesus was the hope that I would someday have a big and successful ministry. I certainly did have that hope, but it crashed on the rocks of what my ministry has actually turned out to be. As I write this book, there is far less visible fruit from my labors than I hoped there would be. I have not experienced nearly enough outward success to keep me motivated.

In the final analysis, I believe that only one thing sustained me. It was the experience of a relationship with Jesus. In spite of my times of disappointment and anger, I knew I was in touch with a supernatural being who was slowly transforming me.

I didn’t want to let go of that – especially when I believed He was the ultimate supernatural being – the One who created us and to whom we will all eventually answer. When I looked at the whole package of what He offered: my relationship with Him, my amazement with His promises, the reality of seeing myself walk through changes that were impossible for me on my own, the gradual increase of practical spiritual reality, the promise of eternal life – it all motivated me to keep moving forward.

I grew to love Him; I learned to hear Him speak in objective and subjective ways; I found my place in what He was doing in the earth. The Bible told me that this would make the suffering worthwhile …and it did!^[20]

 

 

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