The renewed mind

Romans 12: 2 challenges us to  "Do not conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." As I read this verse recently I considered the pattern of today's world. We live in a world that is filled with rage, prejudice, hatred, toxicity, divisions, greed, violence, pain, abuse, fear, anxiety, depression and more negative emotions than can be listed here. Christians are not immune to these negative emotions. We see this in the divisions that exist in churches and in the language Christians use against one another. Obviously, none of the things I've listed here are positive, and none of them bring value to one's life. We can also note that we are not born with any of these; these are learned as we grow up. So where do they come from?

One place is through the media and much of the so-called entertainment of today. After years of faithfully following the news every night, I have mostly quit watching. I learned that the media does not report the news; it creates the news by deciding each day, out of thousands of possible stories, which ones they will give air time. The stories they select are the ones which promotes their personal biases or ones they can spin to their advantage. There are no journalists today of the likes of Huntley and Brinkley or Walter Cronkite so I have no interest in hearing today's talking heads promoting their agendas. 

What passes as entertainment today is no better. Comedians today believe they have to be vulgar and obscene in order to be funny. Many movies are not made to entertain their audience or even to tell a good story. They are made to promote an agenda, a mindset the producers want to instill in their audiences. Music has always shaped its listeners thinking and it still does.

University campuses are another place where the negative thoughts are learned. We often hear of a professor who is accused of promoting bigotry and hatred. Occasionally, a university will take action against such a professor, but often they defend the "academic freedom" of the professor and allow him or her to continue to teach. I can only wonder why a parent would spend $50,000-100,000 a year to allow his or her child to be subjected to such mental abuse. Of course, this type of instruction doesn't only happen at the university level. We now hear of it happening even in grade schools.

These negative emotions and mindsets are also learned in too many homes. No child is born to hate another. This has to be learned, and it's often learned in the home. We are born with a happy and trusting disposition, but because of situations in too many homes, that disposition is changed into some ugly which can follow that child throughout his or her life.

Regardless of where such toxic emotions and mindsets are learned, God tells us that we do not have to be conformed to the patterns of this world. We can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. How does renewing happen?

It begins by trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, giving your life to Him. If you've never done that I would love to talk with you about how to do that. Just send me a message.

Secondly, it comes by meditating on biblical truth. God promised Joshua in the Old Testament that if he would meditate on the Scriptures and keep them that God would bless him in all that he did. As we read the book that goes by his name, we see that God was faithful to keep that promise. 

In Philippians 4: 8 God says to us, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. When we meditate on these things, we will find the toxic thoughts and behaviors will slowly begin to leave us. We will find ourselves separating more and more from the world and drawing closer to God and to becoming what He created us to be. It is here that we enjoy God's greatest blessings.