What Does It Mean to Renew Your Mind? (Romans 12:2)
Romans 12:2 shows up in sermons and Bible studies all the time: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (NIV). Yet we rarely stop to explore what it actually means to renew our minds, or how to do it.
To renew your mind means to think God’s thoughts after Him. You notice what you have quietly come to believe about God and about yourself, and then you choose, again and again, to think and speak what God says is true instead, even on the days your heart and emotions haven’t caught up yet. I often put it this way:
We do the mind renewing and God does the transforming.
It’s a gentle, daily practice, and it can happen anywhere: in the car, at the kitchen sink, or lying awake at two in the morning.
What “transformed” really means
This is where the Greek geek in me gets a little giddy. The word Paul uses for “transformed” is metamorphoō. It’s the same word the Gospels use when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain: “There he was transfigured before them” (Matthew 17:2, NIV; see also Mark 9:2). His face shone like the sun.
Think of a caterpillar and a butterfly. They look nothing alike, and yet one becomes the other. That’s the kind of change God holds out to His children, so it’s worth understanding what mind renewal really is.
Isn’t that just reading my Bible?
Reading the Bible, praying, memorizing Scripture, and going to church are all good things. And yet many people who have done those things faithfully for decades still feel dry, and still wonder why so little seems to change.
You can memorize Philippians 4:13, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (NIV), and still never reel that truth in close. Renewing your mind asks: do I really mean it? Can I set the fork down when I’m not hungry, through Christ who strengthens me? Can I speak lovingly to my kids when I’m frustrated, through Christ who strengthens me?
Bible study can quietly turn into filling in the blanks of a workbook, and a reading plan into checking a box. Philippians 4:8 invites us to go further: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable… think about such things” (NIV). Thinking about such things takes intention. And we aren’t left on our own: “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16, NIV). Mind renewal is learning to think with that mind.
We look for transformation in a lot of places
As humans, we tend to look to all kinds of things to change us: willpower, self-control, positive thinking, programs, ten steps to this or that. We’re usually hoping for one big change, and we’re usually focused on the outside of the cup.
Proverbs 3:5-6 gently reminds us not to lean on our own understanding: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (NIV). Even our ideas about what will transform us deserve a second look.
Start with the “therefore”
There’s an old saying that if you see a “therefore,” you want to know what it’s there for. Romans 12 begins with one: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1, NIV).
Back up just a few verses and you find Paul overflowing with worship: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” and “For from him and through him and for him are all things” (Romans 11:33, 36, NIV). Eleven chapters about the mercy of God come first. So renewing your mind begins as a response to how kind God has already been. We renew our minds because we already have His love, never to earn it.
Why our thoughts matter so much
What we think about drives what we believe. What we believe shapes what we do. And what we do, over and over, becomes the pattern of our lives. So if we want to see change in what we do, we back up all the way to what we let our minds dwell on.
Many of us have picked up beliefs from culture, from family, from friends, even from church culture, that simply aren’t true. They sound like “I always mess this up,” or “God must be disappointed in me,” or “I will never change.” Those thoughts rarely announce themselves as lies. They feel like facts. Renewing the mind is the slow, grace-filled work of noticing them and bringing them into the light of God’s truth.
A few simple ways to begin
At Revelation Within we have more than 100 mind renewal tools, many of them created by people in our community. Here are a few of the first ones we teach.
The God List. Start with who God is. Open to a passage of Scripture and ask: What is God like? What does He do for His people? What does He want me to believe? Write down what you find. Keep adding to it from sermons, worship songs, and hymns. Many of us discover we had forgotten so many wonderful things about Him. It’s a bit like finding a stack of love letters you didn’t know you had.
Praisefest. Turn your God List into praise, often alphabetically: You are amazing. You are beautiful. You are my Creator. (If you get stuck on Q or X, He is very gracious about it.) My favorite time for a Praisefest is the middle of the night, when worry likes to wake up too. It’s one of the quickest ways we know to settle an anxious heart, and it has a way of putting a smile on your face.
Who I Am in Christ. Next to who God is, the most important thing to renew our minds about is who we are in Him. If God says it about you, it’s true, and your performance can’t change it. You are His beloved. You are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37, NIV). Speaking these truths out loud helps them sink in.
Catch the lie, speak the truth. When you notice a thought that doesn’t line up with God’s Word, write it down, and then write the specific truth that answers it. If the lie is “I always fail, so God must be done with me,” the truth might be “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1, NIV). What matters is aiming the right truth at the specific lie.
Look and Learn. When you slip or stumble, and we all do, invite God into it instead of letting it define you. Acknowledge it, remember that He sees it too, and ask Him what you can learn. “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3, NIV).
Please don’t let these overwhelm you. Pick just one and try it this week. Some months in our community we practice a single tool, like gratitude, every day for a whole month, because one tool used faithfully can shift how we respond to the situations and people in front of us.
What renewing your mind isn’t
Renewing your mind never asks you to pretend everything is fine or to ignore real pain, and it’s no substitute for wise care. Sometimes the most truthful next step is a visit to your doctor, and Scripture honors that kind of wisdom too.
It isn’t one more thing to get right, either. If you miss a day, or a week, there’s no condemnation here. You simply begin again. Christina put it beautifully:
The truth doesn’t require you to feel peaceful right away. It gives you somewhere to stand while the feelings are still present.
Christina Motley
When it feels slow
Most of us need to hear a truth, and try it, many times before it takes hold. The hardest part is usually believing it could be true for us, more than understanding what God says. That’s normal, and it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
To be honest with you, when I renew my mind, I’m not always agreeing with God in my heart and emotions yet. But because it is TRUTH, I know it’s worth repeating to myself. God made our brains able to change (that’s what neuroplasticity means), and what we keep thinking, over time, we come to believe. So even if you don’t agree with it when you start, keep speaking God’s thoughts. You will see a shift. Our part is to keep showing up with what is true. His part is the transforming, and He is faithful to do it.
A place to start today
Pick one thing you know to be true about God, just one, and come back to it a few times today. Thank Him for it while you wait in line or wash a dish, and you’re renewing your mind.
Mind renewal is serious business, because God’s Word is. It’s also full of joy. The more we think about who God really is, the more we find ourselves smiling, and sometimes laughing out loud, at how good He is.
If you’d like a few more tools to carry with you, our free Mind Renewal Toolbox gathers seven Scripture-based practices on one phone-friendly page. And if you’d like to practice this together with others, Mind Renewal Mastery is where we go deeper.
What is one thing about God you’d like to think about more often this week?