Renewing Your Mind

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Planting Your Life in God's Word"

"Come Away and Rest, Day 1"

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Dannah Gresh: Way back in . . . oh, the eighties, I guess, I first heard about The Broken Windows Theory. It claimed that visible signs of disorder in a neighborhood or community—things like broken windows, graffiti, or litter—signal neglect in a community. And, get this, these visible signs created a tendency to further neglect and more serious crime.

Think about it. When your bedroom is a mess, do you tend to just let it all pile up? Yeah, me too.

On the other hand, right after I do my spring cleaning, when I take time to restore order to and organize—renew, if you will— my most private space, well, it makes me want to tend to that same room with great care. 

Today, I want to apply that concept to the most private space within you: your mind. Is it time for a little spring clean up in there? Let’s talk about about renewing your mind.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Renew. What’s that mean? It means to make new; to transform; to restore.

Romans 12, verse 2 says, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

Reading this always gives me so much comfort and grace for all the spaces in my mind that are still a bit cluttered. You see, when you understand and believe the gospel and God brings you into His family, you belong to Him. But . . . you are not changed overnight to be more like Jesus. It’s a process, as the Holy Spirit renews your mind, and your heart, and your actions. And every now and then, God takes me through a bit of spring cleaning to take this process—some call it sanctification—one step deeper.

So, what does this look like—”renewing the mind”?

First of all, did you catch what I just said? It’s the Spirit who renews your mind. That’s really important. Because if you misunderstand this, the Christian life starts to feel like a giant self-improvement project. Like God handed you a checklist and said, “Good luck fixing yourself.”

But that’s not how transformation works. Renewal is God’s work. The Holy Spirit is the One who comes in and starts restoring what’s broken, reorganizing what’s messy, and clearing out what doesn’t belong anymore. He’s the master cleaner of the human heart.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that we just need to say, “Lord, help!” And He will. It’s not about us. It’s about Him. I mean the very motivation to have a renewed mind starts with Him, not us.

But even though He does the deep work, we still have a role. We place ourselves in His hands. We cooperate with what He’s doing. That’s where Ephesians 4 helps us understand the invitation to relinquish to God’s work in our minds. Here. Let me read your invitation to renewal. Listen to this. Ephesians 4:17–24 says:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

Full Stop.

If any of that feels convicting, there’s no condemnation. But . . . it might be time for a spring clean up in your mind. Let me keep reading in verse 20.

But that is not the way you learned Christ! assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Did you notice the assignments God gives us there?

1. Take off.
2. Put on.

Let’s talk about “taking off” the things that are not fitting for the Christian life. Ya know, every spring when I clean out my closet, I end up with this big bag of clothes that just don’t fit anymore. Some of them are worn out. Some of them are from a different season of life. Some of them just need to go, and off they go to Goodwill.

Spiritually speaking, the Holy Spirit starts showing us things that no longer fit the person we are becoming in Christ.

• Maybe it’s old language.
• Maybe it’s a habit.
• Maybe it’s a thought pattern.
• Maybe it’s bitterness, or jealousy, or a secret sin that’s been cluttering the room of your mind for a long time.

When Jesus lives in you, some things simply don’t belong anymore. So what do we do?

Paul says we take them off. Haul them out of our mind. Sometimes that means making a decision.

• Deleting an app
• Changing the music you listen to
• Confessing sin to God and probably a Christian sister for accountability
• Setting a new boundary

But here’s the beautiful part: the Christian life isn’t just about taking things off. It’s also about putting something better on.

Christianity can get misrepresented as a long list of “thou shalt nots.” But that’s not the heart of it. God is not trying to shrink your life. He’s inviting you into something better.

What do you need to put on to replace what doesn’t fit any more?

• Maybe you download a Bible reading app.
• You start listening to more worship music.
• You could set up a cozy chair in the corner of your house where your Bible and journal are waiting for you every morning.

Start filling your mind with truth instead of noise. Because when the Spirit renews your mind, He doesn’t just remove the clutter. He fills the space with something beautiful.

Righteousness—that means it becomes easier to make godly choices.

Holiness—that means you look, sound, and show up differently. You’re not like the rest of the world. God is setting you apart.

And slowly—sometimes quietly, sometimes dramatically—you begin to notice something changing. The room of your mind starts to feel different: lighter, clearer, more peaceful. Not because you perfected yourself, but because the Spirit of God is doing His patient, faithful work of renewal inside you.

Hmm, you know that feeling you get when the closet looks so neat after a good spring cleaning? Well, this is even better, my friend.

So, when you recognize the areas of your mind that need to be cleaned up, don’t be discouraged. Ask God’s Spirit to help you! Start there. But then, as He directs you, take off what doesn’t fit anymore and put on more of Jesus.

Now, the things we put on, some of these are called spiritual disciplines, and they are an important aspect of mind renewal. We don’t have time to look at all of them, but I want to address a couple.

First: meditation on Scripture. That is a recipe for mind renewal.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth taught on this spiritual discipline, and she used Psalm 1.

Psalm 1 gives a vibrant picture of renewal: a tree. Not a dry skeleton tree baking in a sunny field, but a lush, green one next to a river. It never even has a chance to dry up because it is constantly being renewed by the water at its roots.

What’s the equivalent for you and me? No doubt you’re familiar with this passage and know the answer, but let me read it to you. This is Psalm 1, verses 1–3.

How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

Let’s listen as my dear friend Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth invites us to do some self-examination.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: When I read that phrase, I thought, Wouldn’t it be great never to wither? I mean, there are lots of days when I think I’m just withering. I’m tired. I’m not feeling fruitful today. But Scripture says as we meditate on the law of God day and night, we will be evergreen, never withering. In all that he does, he prospers.

• Do you want to prosper in everything that you do?
• Do you want to be victorious over every area of temptation in your life?
• Do you want to be fruitful and evergreen in every situation and season of your life?
• Then ask yourself this question: Where is my life planted?

Am I planted in worldly counsel and wisdom, in the counsel of the ungodly, the way of sinners, or the seat of scoffers? Am I getting the input into my heart and mind from television, from books, from magazines, from the Internet, from other people and sources that are not pointing me in godly directions?

Or is my life planted in the Word of God? Where are my roots? I’m not saying, "Do you ever read God’s Word?" I assume most of you wouldn’t be sitting here today if you didn’t have some interest in the Word of God. I assume most of our listeners wouldn’t be listening to Revive Our Hearts if they didn’t have some interest in the Word of God.

But I’m saying where are the roots of your life placed? Where do you get most of your intake? The input that comes into what you think about and what goes into your mind and your heart—where is that input coming from? Is it coming from the world, or is it coming from the Word of God?

I want to focus in this session on the importance and the practice of personal meditation on the Word of God. In the Old Testament there are two Hebrew words that are primarily used for meditation. One of them we just read about in Joshua 1 and in Psalm 1. It’s a word that means "to murmur," "to mutter," "to sigh," or "to whisper."

One commentator says the word describes a low moaning sound like that of a dove.

It's interesting. As I've been working on this series, there has been working under my window (I've not been able to see, but I've been able to hear) what sounds like a morning dove. It's got that low, mourning, moaning sound of a morning dove. I had never noticed it before. But it's been outside of my study window for days now as I've been studying this passage.

Every time I hear this sound I think of that muttering, murmuring, sighing, whispering. It’s keeping the word on your tongue. It’s mulling it over.

There’s another word that’s used for meditation in the Psalms. It’s a similar word. It means "to ponder," "to muse," "to converse aloud or even with oneself." It’s okay to talk to yourself if you’re murmuring, muttering, meditating on the Word of God.

It’s a word that means "to consider," "to think upon something." It conveys the idea of going over a matter in one’s mind, rehearsing it, whether inwardly or outwardly. I’m quoting from a reference book that defines some of these Old Testament words for us.1 So to meditate.

Psalm 119 says, “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways" (Psalm 119:15). "O how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). It's something I’m always thinking about, always pondering, always musing over, always considering, talking about it to myself and to others.

The picture we get in the New Testament of someone meditating is in Luke chapter 2, where we read that Mary of Nazareth treasured up all these things that she had been seeing and hearing. "She treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart" (v. 19).

We’re a generation that has so much coming at us so quickly that I find that a lot of information just goes in and out as quickly as it came in. We’re deluged with input and information, particularly those of us who use the Internet a lot. I do a lot of research on the Internet. I can read something on the Internet and forget what I read five minutes later because I’m taking so much in.

The danger is that we would do that with the Word of God, that it would be easy in and easy out. What the Scripture is talking about here is something that helps to keep the Word of God in you—not going in one ear and out the other—but stopping and even as you’re moving throughout the day, to ponder, to meditate, to consider it, to review it, to treasure it in your heart.

We’re not talking about the kind of meditation you will hear about sometimes with Eastern religions. The concept there is that you empty the mind, that you put it in neutral. That’s not the biblical concept of meditation at all.

We’re talking in scriptural terms about consciously pondering, dwelling on, and filling our minds with the Word of God, not to vacate our minds, but to fill up our minds. Let me say this, you can’t be filling your mind with the Word of God if you’re always filling it with all kinds of other stuff. You’re going to overload.

If we’re going to be filling our minds with the Word of God. That means that there are some other things that we’re not going to have time to put into our minds.

So how do we meditate? I don’t want to give you any formula, but let me just give you some thoughts that have been helpful to me. I’d say that the starting place is to read the Scripture. You say, “Well, that isn’t very profound.” Maybe not. But maybe it really is profound.

There’s no shortage of Bibles in our country. There are more different kinds of Bibles available now than ever. More different translations. We have versions that are geared toward every conceivable demographic. Fancy covers—your Bible can now be a fashion statement.

The key is not what does the cover of your Bible look like? The key is what’s inside the cover and do you know it? Are you familiar with it? Are you reading it?

Surveys show that over 90% of Americans own at least one Bible. The average household has three. Most committed Christians own far more than that. I own scores of Bibles. Yet according to Gallup polls 40% of Americans do not read the Bible even occasionally. We have Bibles, but we are not reading them.

David Jeremiah, I read recently said, “The real issue is not whether you own a Bible or how many, but whether your Bible owns you.” That’s what meditation does for us. It keeps us from just owning Bibles and gets us to the place where the Bible owns us.

What do you do as you read those Scriptures? You hold them up to the light, like you would a diamond or a gem of some sort. You look at it carefully. You look at it closely. You look at it slowly from every conceivable angle. You take a verse or a passage from Scripture. It may be a few verses. It may be a paragraph. It may be a whole chapter. But you look at it over and over and over again.

• You observe it.
• You ask questions about it.
• You ponder it.
• You concentrate on it.
• You look at it as a whole.
• Then you take it apart and look at the parts, one word at a time, one phrase at a time.

Something that helps me in Scripture meditation is to memorize the Scripture. I’d like to say I memorize a lot more than I do. I find that I am memorizing Scripture by saying it over and over and over again, pondering it. It becomes more a part of my life. As you:

• Read it.
• Ponder it.
• Memorize it.
• Pray through it.
• Personalize it.
• Internalize it.
• Apply it to your own life.

Cross-reference it to other passages. I did that at the beginning of this session. I read the passage from Joshua chapter 1 about meditating on God’s Word day and night. As I was meditating on that passage, Psalm 1 came to my mind which also talks about meditating on God’s Word day and night.

So I’ve made the connection between those two passages. That’s meditating on God’s Word. Come back to the verses of the passage again and again and again, not just reading it and then moving on.

I’m a big one for reading through the Scripture. I think there’s a lot of value in that. But I think there’s also a huge need for us to take smaller portions that we digest slowly and carefully and intentionally, mull it over, talk about it with others. I do that with my walking partners. We walk in the mornings. We talk sometimes about the Scripture that we’re meditating on.

Ask questions of yourself about the Scripture. Ask questions of others about the passage. Work it into the warp and woof of your life until it becomes a part of you.

One old-time commentator said, “Meditation is to reading the Word what digesting is to eating. Without the slow and lengthened process of digestion, food would not nourish the body. Without meditation, the Word read will not nourish the soul.”

A lot of people who are reading the Word of God aren’t getting nourished by it because it’s just going in and out again. That’s why you need to meditate on it. It’s like digestion; it causes it to nourish your soul.

Dannah: What a good reminder of the importance of meditation as a part of mind renewal. That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, teaching from Psalm 1.

Now, what other words come to mind when you hear that word “renewal”? Refreshing? Invigorating? How about . . . restful? You know that sleep—rest—renews your physical and mental strength. And rest (both physical and spiritual) is another way to renew your mind. I’m not talking about binge-watching your favorite show! (Though there may be a time and place for that.) I’m talking about intentional rest that makes you slow down to enjoy the beauty of creation, build relationships, and especially spend time with Jesus.

That kind of rest doesn’t come easily to most of us, and Carrie Gaul had to learn how to practice it. She’s here with some insight on what that looks like. Let’s listen.

Carrie Gaul: We're committed followers of Jesus Christ striving hard to "get 'er done." But inwardly, we're exceedingly weighed down. We're tired, we're exhausted, we're discouraged, we're bowed down under a weight of shame and guilt because we can't have the perfect marriage and the perfect children and the perfect life!

Our hearts are often heavy. The creep of daily life somehow catches us off-guard, and it begins to threaten to take us under. With the Psalmist we cry, "We're exceedingly afflicted."

Have you been there? I hope not physically, but perhaps you've been there emotionally, mentally, spiritually, where the creep of life, the creep of busyness, begins to threaten to take you under in the reality of what you're living with.

If you're exceedingly afflicted today, I want you to join me, to spend the next few minutes sitting with me at the feet of the Savior—the One who is the Living Word. The Psalmist said, "I am exceedingly afflicted; revive me O Lord according to Your Word." You see, my friends, it's at the feet of Jesus where our dry and thirsty hearts become saturated with Him. It's in His presence that our afflicted souls find peace and rest and satisfaction.

I think maybe the disciples had a sense of that in Mark 6:30–31. If you have your Bible, go there with me. You'll remember the story. The disciples have just returned from an intense season of life and ministry. They've been out preaching the gospel of repentance, and they're seeing lives changed. Incredible miracles are happening.

In this passage, the disciples have gathered, literally, around Jesus' feet. I imagine them sitting with Him under the shade of an old olive tree. Jesus is in the middle of them, and the twelve of them are gathered around, and they're just talking a mile a minute. They're telling stories; they're reliving what they've seen.

They've got questions. One will start a story, and another will finish it. Jesus is listening, and He's interacting with them as they're just sitting there sharing their hearts. And then after a bit, Jesus stands up, and He quietly says to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest awhile" (v. 31 NASB).

The very next verse, in the New American Standard Bible (it's in parentheses) says, "[Because] there were so many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat" (v. 31). When I read that passage for the first time a few months ago, I thought, Jesus was in my house last week! (laughter) And He was in yours, too.

He knows the reality of what you're facing every day. Sometimes your days are so crazy. There are so many people coming and going; there is so much that you're doing that you don't even have time to eat. That's where the disciples found themselves, and that's where we so often find ourselves.

Jesus knows the reality of what you're walking through, my friends. He knows. He knows the challenges that you faced in getting here today, and He knows the challenges that you will face when you return home. They may be very different, but He knows. He knows what awaits you.

In the midst of it all, Jesus says, "Come away, by yourselves, and rest awhile." It's interesting, isn't it? I don't know how you might respond to that invitation. I know a number of you who are here today, and I know that you are far more gracious than I am.

But I think, if I were to be real honest with you, when I hear Jesus' invitation to come away and rest awhile—even when I may know that I desperately need to do that—I don't always respond with a real eagerness to do that. In fact, sometimes the creep, the busyness of life, is weighing me down and causes a bit of an attitude in my response to Jesus.

I hear Him through His Word say, "Come away, Carrie. You just need to come away, and you need to rest awhile." And in my mind, when I hear Jesus' invitation to come away and rest awhile I say,

"Really, Jesus! Maybe you haven't seen this ball and chain that I'm carrying around in my life. Maybe you don't know, Jesus, the reality of what I'm living with on a daily basis."

"Maybe you don't know, Jesus, that my husband left me last week, and we're not sure how we're going to pay the bills."

"Maybe You don't know, Jesus, that my children, my teenagers, are struggling. They're rebellious, and I don't know how to get them back. Maybe You don't know all of what's going on in our life."

"Do You not know that I've been to the doctor last week? Have You not heard the pathology report?"

"Do you not know the reality of what our church has going on? 'Come away and rest?!' With this ball and chain?" [the sound of the ball dropping to the floor and chain clanking]

Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore [you have to go back to chapter 7], for those who are in Christ, there is no condemnation" (paraphrased). There is no condemnation. That is not the voice of Jesus in your mind.

Jesus doesn't say that to the disciples, and He's not saying it to you. Jesus said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest awhile." Tenderly, compassionately, He invited them to come and to allow Him to restore their souls, to restore their joy, to do what we talked about in Psalm 119, "Revive my heart according to Your Word, O Lord" (see Psalm 119:25). Jesus invited them to that.

I don't know what you're walking through today. I don't know what the "ball and chains" in your life are [sound of ball dropping and chains clanking], but I know we have them. I know we're often masters at disguising them before other people in our own lives . . . aren't we?

We try to keep them hidden, but we're wearing them, these balls and chains. The doubts and disillusionments that you're working hard to disguise, Jesus knows. He knows it all. He knew not only what the disciples were saying as they were gathering around Him that day, but He knew what was in their minds and what they didn't have the courage to voice. 

He knows what's in your mind today, as well. He knows every detail, every disappointment, every disillusionment, every sin; Jesus knows. Today, my friends, with His hands extended to you in grace, He says, "Come away and rest in my love."

Dannah: Are you feeling weary, burdened? Maybe spiritually dry or tired? “Come away and rest” in Jesus’ love. Rest physically, too. You will be renewed and refreshed and strengthened in your journey to becoming like Christ.

Maybe you feel more than just weary and burdened. Maybe you’re so discouraged, so anxious, that you feel you can hardly breathe, let alone truly rest. Perhaps this whole program has shed off of you like rain off a roof. Can I just encourage you not to discount it? God and His Word are more powerful than you can imagine. Ask Him to renew your mind.

But also, don’t stop there. If you haven’t yet, talk to someone who can encourage you and help you think through things biblically.

And I want to tell you about a book that you may find helpful. It’s called Made to Tremble, by Blair Linne, and the subtitle is How Anxiety Became the Best Thing that Ever Happened to My Faith. Blair experienced serious anxiety and panic attacks and learned that she couldn’t rely on easy platitudes to get her out of those emotions. She had to learn how to truly lean on God.

Right now, we want to send you that book when you make a gift of any amount to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. You can do that at ReviveOurHearts.com/donate

Now, none of the things we talked about today will have much meaning if you don’t really understand the gospel and how it affects your life. That’s what we’re talking about next week, so be sure to join us for that.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

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