Principles for Personal Change:

*“Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes” (Ephesians 4:23 NLT).

Change requires new thinking. In order to change, we must learn about God’s truth and start making good choices, but we also must change the way we think.

We’ve talked about this before: The battle over sin starts in your mind, not in your behavior. The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act. If you want to change the way you act, you start by changing the way you think. In addition, if you want to change the way you feel, you must start with the way you think.

Think – Feel – Act

For instance, I can say, “I need to love my kids more,” but that isn’t going to work. Or someone can say, “I need to love my spouse more,” but that isn’t going to work. You can’t fight your way into a feeling. You must change the way you think about your kids, about your husband, about your wife, and that will change the way you feel, which will then change the way you act. The Bible says, “There must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes” (Ephesians 4:23 NLT).

Let me sum it up this way: You are not what you think you are, but rather, what you think, you are. The battle for sin, the battle to deal with those defects in your life that you don’t like — it starts in your mind. If you want to change anything in your behavior or anything in your emotions, you start with your thoughts and your attitude.

The renewal of your mind is related to the word “repentance.” I know repentance is a dirty word for a lot of people. They think it means something bad, something you don’t really want to do, something painful. They think of a guy standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “Repent. The world’s about to end.”

Repentance has nothing to do with your behavior. It is about changing your mind, learning to think differently. “Repent” simply means to make a mental U-turn. It’s something you do in your mind, not with your behavior. Changing the way you think will then affect your emotions and affect your behavior.

When I repent, I make a mental U-turn. I turn from guilt to forgiveness. I turn from purposelessness to purpose in life. I turn from no hope to new hope. I turn from frustration to freedom. I turn from darkness to light. I turn from hell to heaven. I turn from hatred to love.

I also change the way that I think about God. He’s not mad at me; I’m deeply flawed, but I’m deeply loved. I change the way I think about you, I change the way I think about my kids, and I change the way I think about my wife. I change the way I think about the world, I change the way I think about the economy, and I change the way I think about my past, my present, and my future.

So being renewed in your mind means more than changing the way you think about God and Jesus; it also means you change the way you think about your own defects. The Bible tells us, “Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5 AMP).

Talk It Over

• What do you think of when you hear the word “repentance”?
• Where in your life do you need to take the first step of changing the way you think?
• We discussed turning from guilt to forgiveness, from purposelessness to purpose in life, from no hope to new hope. What type of “mental U-turn” do you most need in your life?