How God Renews Our Thoughts

This is the first installment of a five-part series on "How God Renews Us."

Many thinkers have attested to the power of the mind over a person's life. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "A man is what he thinks about all day long." Marcus Aurelius said: "A man's life is what his thoughts are made of." William James wrote: "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." James Thurber stated more cynically the power of our thoughts: "Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness."

The structure of the brain reveals how powerful it is. The brain has 12 to 14 billion cells (Hughes, 1991). Each cell sends out thousands of connecting tendrils so that a single cell may be connected with 10,000 neighboring cells. This is why the brain has been compared to 1,000 switchboards, each big enough to serve New York City, all running at full speed. It has been estimated that there is more electronic equivalent in the brain than in all the radio and TV stations of the entire world.

What we think determines how we feel and what we do. If we want to change how we feel, we need to change how we think. If we want to change how we act, we need to change how we think. If we can learn to replace our negative, sinful, distorted thoughts with positive, holy, truthful thoughts, our lives would improve dramatically.

I. The Problem: Distorted Minds

Second Corinthians 4:3-4 describes the mind as the arena in which spiritual forces of good and evil struggle for control of our lives: "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (TNIV). By choosing to live independently of God, we have placed ourselves under the control of evil.

To ensure that people remain in bondage to evil, the Evil One distorts their thinking so that they cannot see the truth. Consequently, unbelievers are deceived about themselves and about God. They think they are their own gods. They think that God has no meaning for them.

In an Archie cartoon, Jughead told Archie that he was afraid he would fail at something he wanted to do. Archie told him: "Tell yourself you can do it. Speak positive messages of success to yourself." Jughead answered: "That won't work. I know what a liar I am!" According to Paul, we have all lied to ourselves. Until we accept the truth of the gospel, we are blinded to the truth about ourselves.

Second Corinthians 10:3-5 also says that we are engaged in a battle for our minds: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (TNIV).

According to Paul, evil forces set up strongholds in our minds (Anderson, 1993). These strongholds are negative patterns of thought that are burned into our minds through repetition over time. Once a stronghold is entrenched in our minds, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is greatly diminished.

In Paul's terminology, we are slaves to sin. We are addicted to sin, and we have little control over our actions. Demonic forces take advantage of these points of weakness and exploit them for their own destructive purposes. We know we are victims of a stronghold when we cannot help what we think and do.

II. The Remedy: The Truth

Second Corinthians 4:5-6 says that distorted, darkened minds are healed by the truth of the gospel: "For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Christ" (TNIV). Only the truth that Jesus died to set us free from sin has the power to break through the fog of our distorted minds and clear up our thinking. When we accept the gospel, we think clearly about ourselves, about God, and about Jesus.

Satan confuses our thoughts with lies (Jn 8:44), but his control over our minds is broken by accepting the truth (Jn 8:32). We accept the truth by confession. First John deals with the problem that some Christians believed the lie that they were without sin. This lie caused them all kinds of problems. John said the remedy was to see the truth about themselves: "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 Jn 1:8-9, TNIV).

In confession, we see ourselves as God sees us. We agree with God's view of us. We are honest with ourselves and with God about our thoughts, our motives, and our actions. We accept the truth also by repentance, which literally means "change of mind" in Greek (metanoia). Through confession and repentance, we come to think the way God thinks. We focus our minds on God's will instead of on our will.

Once we begin to think the way God thinks, we come to have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). We think Christ's thoughts after him. We see the truth about ourselves, about others, and about God.

III. The Process: Renewal

1. Submit to God.

Romans 12:1-2 says: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your proper worship as rational beings. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" (TNIV). God does not force change on us. We must yield ourselves to him so that he can change us. If we submit to him and seek his will, he will renew our minds so that we will know his will.

2. Resist negative influences.

Romans 12:2 warns us not to be conformed to the world. We need to be selective about the input into our minds because those influences program our minds to think the way they think. We need to be selective about books, music, friends, co-workers, movies, etc.

Television especially is a major influence on our minds (Hughes, 1991). According to studies, the average viewer watches 4-1/2 hours a day, 1500 hours a year. The average child will spend 15,000-16,000 hours in front of the TV but only 13,000 hours in school. By age 20, people see 1 million commercials, including 100,000 beer commercials. And we wonder why 25,000 people are killed each year in drunk-driving incidents!

The danger of TV is that it reflects the values, opinions, and morals of those who produce it (Hughes, 1991). According to one survey of 104 TV executives, only 7% of them attend church (vs. 55% of the general public); 45% have no religious affiliation (vs. 4% of the general public); only 49% believe adultery is always wrong (vs. 85% of the general public); and only 20% think homosexual acts are wrong (vs. 76% of the general public). Clearly, their values are way out of line with most Americans, and they are contradictory to Biblical values. Yet we expose our minds to their subtle and overt attempts to shape our thinking.

3. Displace negative thoughts with positive thoughts.

Philippians 4:8 instructs us to be selective about what we allow into our minds: "Finally, brothers and sisters, 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" (TNIV). Notice that everything listed here is positive. And each of these things is a matter of choice.

In Luke 11:24-26, Jesus instructs that we must replace the negative with the positive: "When an evil spirit comes out of anyone, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first" (TNIV). This is the principle of displacement: To get rid of the negative, we must focus on the positive. It is not enough to stop thinking sinful thoughts; we must replace them with godly thoughts.

A young child came to her mother complaining that her stomach hurt. "Oh, honey, your stomach is empty," the mother responded. "You just need to get something in it and you'll be fine." A week later, the pastor was speaking with her mother, and he mentioned that he had a headache. "Oh, pastor, my mommy says that your head is empty," the girl responded. "You just need to get something in it and you'll be fine." If we can get positive, holy thoughts into our heads, they will drive out the negative thoughts.

Here is an exercise to illustrate this (Lutzer, 1994). Close your eyes for 10 seconds, and visualize the number 8. Now, when you read this line, stop thinking about the number 8 for the next 10 seconds.

Could you do it? We cannot control our thoughts just by telling ourselves to stop thinking about them: This only makes us dwell on them more.

Now, think about the number 1,000 and divide it by 5.

Are you still thinking about the number 8?

The easiest way to remove air from a bottle is to fill it with water. Similarly, the easiest way to drive out negative thoughts is by filling our minds with positive thoughts.

Our thoughts are in perpetual motion; we cannot stop them. Perhaps the only time we are without any thoughts is when we watch a Three Stooges episode--which may explain why men like the Three Stooges more than women do. We cannot stop our thoughts, but we can control their content and direction.

For example, we can practice "thought-stopping." Thought-stopping works this way: On an index card, write the word "STOP!" in red letters and then write a Bible verse on the other side that addresses the negative thought you are trying to control. Whenever that negative thought enters your mind, pull the card out of your pocket, tell yourself to stop, and then read the Bible verse to replace the negative thought with a positive one.

According to the principle of selective attention, our minds can focus on only one thing at a time. For example, the next time you are in a crowded room, try to listen to more than one conversation at a time. It can't be done! Our minds can focus attention on only one stimulus at a time, or else they would get overloaded.

This principle means that harmful thought patterns can be squeezed out of our minds by focusing our attention on positive thoughts. We fill our minds with positive thoughts by reading the Bible, watching uplifting movies, listening to Christian music, and engaging in conversations with Christian friends.

4. Place your thoughts under Christ's authority.

Second Corinthians 10:3-5 says that we tear down strongholds in our minds by taking every thought captive for Christ. When the negative thought first enters our minds, we must surrender it to Christ's authority so that he can control it. oo often, however, we mull over a negative thought until we commit the act.

A "Cathy" cartoon illustrates how this works (Anderson, 1990). Cathy was struggling with a diet. In each frame, she speaks to herself:

Frame 1: I will take a drive, but won't go near the grocery store.

Frame 2: I will drive by the grocery store, but will not go in.

Frame 3: I will go in the grocery store, but will not walk down the aisle where the Halloween candy is on sale.

Frame 4: I will look at the candy, but not pick it up.

Frame 5: I will pick it up, but not buy it.

Frame 6: I will buy it, but not open it.

Frame 7: Open it, but not smell it.

Frame 8: Smell it, but not taste it.

Frame 9: Taste it, but not eat it.

Frame 10: Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat!

Once we have allowed our thoughts to dwell too long and go too far, it becomes very difficult to turn them around.

5. Meditate on Scripture.

According to Psalm 1:1-2, we have to know God's thoughts first if we want to think them: "Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night" (NRSV).

According to these verses, some people allow themselves to be influenced by the wrong people. They adopt the thought patterns of those whose minds are distorted. But others seek to dwell on God's thoughts. As a result, according to verse 3, they are stable, productive, and persevering: "They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper" (NRSV).

We need to expose our minds constantly to the truth of God's Word. Just consider how little we expose our minds to God's truth. A dedicated Christian will hear 50 sermons a year at 30 minutes each for a total of 25 hours of Bible exposure in a year. Is that enough to retrain your mind? A really dedicated Christian will receive 50 more hours in Sunday School for a total of 75 hours. That may sound like a lot, but the average person will watch 1,500 hours of TV in a year. Can 75 hours of Bible study counteract 1,500 hours of television? We might say that we don't have time to study the Word, but it only takes about 70 hours to read the entire Bible. And where do we find 1,500 hours in a year to watch TV?

Psalm 119:11 says that dwelling on God's Word will keep us away from sin: "I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you" (NRSV). Our minds focus on that which makes the strongest impression on our minds. Studies have shown that a policeman who stops by the side of the road has seven times the chance of having his car hit by a passing motorist if he leaves his flashing light on as he does if he turns the light off. We need to keep God's Word before our minds so that we will put its truth into practice.

IV. Conclusion

Once we allow God to renew our thoughts, how long will it take to retrain our minds to think holy thoughts? A habit is formed by repeating an act for six weeks (Anderson, 1990). So if we can replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts for at least six weeks, those positive thoughts will become our new habits of thought.

To conclude these thoughts about the power of the mind, consider these descriptions of the mind. The mind is a garden that could be cultivated to produce the harvest that we desire. The mind is a workshop where the important decisions of life and eternity are made. The mind is an armory where we forge the weapons for our victory or our destruction. The mind is a battlefield where all the decisive battles of life are won or lost.

V. Reflection Questions

1. What stronghold in your mind do you struggle against? What negative thought pattern dominates your thoughts?

2. What negative input has the most influence on your thoughts? What steps can you take to limit that input?

3. How can you increase the amount of positive input your mind receives?

4. Locate a Scripture that will help correct your negative thought pattern. Write it on a card to keep with you at all times.

Next Topic: "How God Renews Our Emotions"

Sources:

Anderson, N. T. (1990). Victory over the darkness: Realizing the power of your identity in Christ. Ventura, CA: Regal Books.

Anderson, N. T. (1993). The bondage breaker. Eugene, OR: Harvest House.

Crabb, L. (1987). Understanding people: Deep longings for relationship. Grand Rapids, IL: Zondervan.

Hughes, R. K. (1991). Disciplines of a godly man. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Lutzer, E. W. (1994). How to say no to a stubborn habit. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.