Billy Joe Daugherty - Renewing Your Mind

"If you get your head so full of God's Word, sin will quit you!

If you get the light from God's Word in you, darkness will find somewhere else to go! You are cleansed through the Word" (John 15:3).

Billy Joe Daugherty

Contents

A Living Sacrifice

You can experience a turnaround and good changes in your life if you will allow your thinking to be rearranged by a daily input of God's Word. Romans 12:1 ,2 says:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Paul was admonishing believers, "In light of all that God has done for us, we are to give our bodies to serve God and offer them to Him as living sacrifices."

In the Old Testament, once a year a dead sacrifice was offered to God by the high priest. An animal was killed and laid upon the altar. Its blood covered or atoned for the sins of the people.

In New Testament times, which we are in, our sacrifice for sin has already been made once and for all through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. It is then our decision, our choice, to offer our bodies to God as living sacrifices. No one else can present your body to God. You have to present it to Him. Paul said, "Don't be conformed to this world." The Phillips Translation of verse 2 says, "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold , but let God re-make you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed...."

The "world" has a lifestyle, mannerisms and morals distinctly different from born-again believers. Unlike the world, a believer's lifestyle, morals, mannerisms, thoughts, words and actions are to be patterned after Jesus Christ. It is an admonishment from on High that we not be squeezed into the world's mold .

It has been said, "If some people were on trial for being Christians, there wouldn't be enough evidence to convict them." When we are born again, there is to be evidence of change in our lives.

Paul said, "Be ye transformed.

Transformed means "changed, altered, or rearranged." How is this transformation to take place? By the renewing of our minds with God's Word. What God says is what we are to say. We can get our heads straight by filling them with the right stuffGod's Word. Then our minds will be renewed. We must fill our minds with the thoughts, ideas, words and information that come from God. His ideas, His nature, His standards are all contained in His Word.

When the mind is renewed and the body is offered to God, then we will "prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God " (Romans 12:2). Until our minds are renewed with the Word, we will not fulfill the will of God for our lives.

Garbage In ... Garbage Out

When a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, the life of God comes into their heart, or spirit. But their head is still full of the same old thoughts they had before. When your head is full of the wrong kind of thinking, your body will go the wrong direction. To have a heart that is filled with the life of God but continue in sin brings guilt, condemnation and frustration.

This is the exact place many Christians are in today. They know what is right, but their body leads them in another direction.

The mind is the arena of battle for every person. What is being fed into the mind will be acted out in real life. You cannot continue to put garbage in and expect something good to come out. If you want to get a different output from your mind, then you will have to change the input. If the life you are experiencing is not what you want, then you must make a change.

You may be asking, "But how can I make a change?" You can increase your reading, hearing, study and meditation of God's Word. The light of Gods Word will drive the darkness out of your life.

Some people have been trying to quit sin lying, stealing, lusting and getting angry, to name a few areas of challenge of the old nature. Sometimes people go to the church altar and want the pastor to pray it out of them: "Pastor, pray that this anger will leave me. Pray that fear and loneliness will go from my life." I can pray, but if this person's mind is not renewed with God's Word, the very same thoughts that were in their life before will come again and will be acted out.

How do you shed the habits of your old nature and take on the new nature of Jesus Christ? You put so much of the Word of God inside of you that sin will quit you. It won't want to stay around you.

The problem with sin in believers is between their ears. If something other than the Word of God is put in a person's head, it will cause them to think and do things that their spirit doesn't want to do.

Man: A Three-Part Being

God created man a three-part being. Just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One , yet expressed in three different persons, we are created in three distinct parts: spirit, soul and body.

You are a spirit. That's your heart, also referred to in Scripture as the hidden man of the heart, the inner man, or your innermost being.

Jesus said:

If any man thirst , let him come unto me, and drink.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly [or spirit] shall flow rivers of living water.

John 7:37 ,38

Scripture says, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). The life of God comes in your spirit when you are born again.

Your soul is made up of your mind, will, emotions and intellect.

You live inside of a body. When physical death occurs, you simply slip out of the body just like a hand slips out of a glove. Your body is not the "real" you. Your spirit man is the real you. Your body is like a shell over you.

When Adam was created, his spirit was in control. His mind was under the rule of his spirit, and his body did what his spirit and mind said to do. His spirit was directed by God, and he had authority and dominion.

The day came when Adam and Eve yielded to the temptation of the devil to eat the fruit that God had told them not to eat. The serpent, Satan, said it would make them wise and they would be like God. It was pleasant to look at and good for food. Eve responded first from her spirit when she said, "...God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die" (Genesis 3:3). That was her spirit speaking.

But the longer Eve entertained the thought in her mind, she let her body and her mind supersede her spirit. Instead of listening to the voice of God, she put it down and listened to her head. Her head said, "It will make me wise. I'll be like God." Her body said, "It is good for food, and it will satisfy you." Instead of responding to her spirit, she responded to her soul and body and sinned.

You and I face this same temptation every day to allow our minds and bodies to rule us instead of our spirit man. Paul said, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Romans 8:14).

Jesus faced the same temptations that Adam and Eve faced, but instead of yielding to what His eyes could seeturning stones to bread, jumping off the temple to prove He was somebody and accepting the kingdoms of the world and the glory of themHe went by His spirit and said, "It is written." His spirit spoke the Word of God. He allowed His spirit to reign over His soul and body.

When you receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, your spirit man can rule your life, and you can put your mind and body under the domination of your spirit. Instead of your body bossing you around, the real youyour spiritwill tell your body what it is to do. Instead of your mind ruling, your spirit man will give the direction for your thoughts.