Thought Life
“The renewal of our mind and heart was the key to a transformed life in Christ. The engine for that awakening is the gospel of Christ in the Word of God. As our mind was renewed in Christ we would know God’s will and obey it.”
In my junior year at Penn State I was a new follower of Jesus and I was being challenged immediately in my discipleship group of guys with a radical notion: we become what we think about! They said to me, “If everyone could watch a video playback of my thoughts, just my thoughts, over the past week what would they reveal about me?” I immediately began to see in my mind’s eye pictures of my lust, anger, and prideful arrogance as an athlete. My daily life had become dominated by these thoughts. They challenged me to establish a new pattern in my thought process that would honor God and lead to a transformed mind and heart. They told me that in a Hebrew sense, which culturally is the way Jesus thought and spoke (Aramaic), the mind and heart were very much joined together. The Proverbs state, “For as a man thinks within himself (or in his heart) so he is” (Proverbs 23:7a NASB). The substance of who I was was being formed in neural pathways of spiritual darkness. This was very convicting, even fearful, to me. My stream of consciousness, while awake or asleep, revealed a fallen manhood.
What was needed was a new pathway to transform my heart and mind. I met my friend, Hollis Haff, in 1980. At that time he was the Athletes In Action Director for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He came to Penn State and invited me to join some of the Pittsburgh Steelers doing a Christian football camp at Geneva College. At some point shortly after I heard him give a message on Romans 12:2. It showed me the path. Only through daily study, meditating, and internalizing the scriptures could I live out of my new identity in Christ.
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.
Romans 12:2
Hollis shared that the renewal of our mind and heart was the key to a transformed life in Christ. The engine for that awakening is the gospel of Christ in the Word of God. As our mind was renewed in Christ we would know God’s will and obey it. Jesus referred to this process when he said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
I began to realize that my thought life before my conversion in Christ had been dominated by intense desires for worldly things—sensual lust, prideful competition, and boasting. The apostle John wrote:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 2:15-17
My thought life was fueling my desires. It was as if John was looking straight into my mind and heart seeing all of the darkness in my soul. I felt his words measuring me, challenging me; you must choose your path—the love of the Heavenly Father or the love of the world. You cannot have the affirmation and acceptance of both. There is no best of both worlds. The corrupt fallen world system is passing away along with everyone who is trying to save themselves through it. But the one who is losing their life, obeying the will of the Father, will abide forever. Being “transformed by the renewing of my mind” was now connected deeply to shaping the desires of my heart through the Word of God. God’s intention in the gospel for us is that purity of mind and heart would mark our lives as his disciples. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). This purity of heart is a process and an attribute of God seen powerfully in Jesus—“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
John further makes it clear that this new identity in Christ and in the Father means that God’s desire is that we live in a conscious daily awareness that we are the adopted children of God. Even with a lifetime of struggle with sin (1 John 2:1-2).
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 John 3:1
J.I. Packer wrote, “What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as his Father.”1 What amazing love the Father has for all his children. He becomes our delight more and more as we are being transformed by God’s Word, the spirit of sonship that indwells us, and the obedience he requires of us.
In Psalm 119, David expresses his love for God’s law, for his testimonies, his teaching, his commands, indeed his delight for the whole of Scripture (from our vantage point in the church age). His praise for God’s Word covers 176 verses, over 5 full pages.
How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Psalm 119:9-11
Here is David’s secret; a whole-hearted pursuit of God, internalizing his Word. A passion that fueled his heart and mind to live pleasing to the Lord. When we engage the Word of God, really dig in, meditate on it, and memorize it with our whole heart and mind we express a holy desire for purity like David. All of God’s thoughts were precious to David and knowing God’s Word was the gateway to them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.
Psalm 139:17-18
The stream of consciousness in David’s life, while awake or asleep, revealed his desire to live out a deep, intimate delight in God shaping his godly manhood. David revealed this delight in Psalm 37:4. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” That is he will shape our heart’s desires if we delight in him.
The apostle Paul tells us that we are in a great battle, but not a physical one. So, the weapons of our warfare have divine power in the Holy Spirit to oppose, to cast down, every evil thought that comes against the knowledge of Christ. In the Spirit we can take every thought captive to obey Christ!
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Father, we rejoice that you have empowered us by your Word and through the power of the Holy Spirit to live each moment with Paul’s vigilance; fighting the evil one in our mind and heart. May our thought life be shaped by a growing love for the Word of God, so that we will do the will of God in the Spirit of God to the glory of God!
[1] J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), p.181
All Scripture is in the ESV unless noted.
