Life Marks: Renewing our Minds
Repentance and Faith (previously considered) form the twin foundation stones for the Christian life. Without them, there can be no genuine Christian, and no genuine Christian life. Why is that? It’s simply because Repentance and Faith open the door for the transformation of the heart. If the heart is not first transformed (changed), then keeping Jesus’ commandments simply becomes an exercise in “playing Christian.”
We’ve all met them, people (even friends) who talk a lot about their Christianity, but you can immediately tell that behind their external “actions,” there seems to be no evidence of real life transformation. And, this may be true for some of you reading this blog. Maybe you sense that you have been going through the motions of the Christian life, but you realize that you have never had any real relationship with the living God, and no genuine heart transformation. If this describes you, I want to encourage you to find a quiet place and take a few quiet moments to go back to “Step 1.” Draw near to Him in Repentance and Faith, admitting your need for Him, and believing that if you confess your sins, He is faithful to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). That’s what the Bible calls being “born again,” and it is the starting point for a genuine Christian life.
If genuine repentance literally means “changing your mind,” we must realize that this is not only the beginning point of one’s Christian life, but it is also a process that continues throughout our lives as we ask God to “renew our minds.” In fact, the Apostle Paul urges us to stop being “conformed” to the pattern of the world, but to be “transformed” by the renewing your mind (Rom. 12:2). In other words, the “world” tries to squeeze us into it’s mold, and make us think and act like everyone else, but God wants to “transform” our minds (“change them”) so that we can understand that God’s will for us is good, pleasing, and perfect. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every Christian could live with the confident assurance that they are living according to God’s perfect will for them?
But there is someone who will fight us tooth and nail every step of the way. As Jesus was confronted by the religious leaders of His day, He asked them why His teachings did not make any sense to them. He answered by telling them that it was because, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire” (Jn. 8:44). Can you imagine Jesus’ boldness? Here these religious leaders thought that they were “Children of Abraham” (which they were “in the flesh”), but at the core of their being, they were really “children of the devil,” bent on carrying out their father’s will (Jn. 8:33, 44). And then, Jesus proceeded to tell them something about the devil’s character, which is incredibly instructive for us to keep in mind:
He was a murder from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar, and the father of lies” (Jn. 8:44).
And so, Jesus tells us that the devil is a murderer, trying to destroy our relationships and to steal our joy, hopes, and dreams. Furthermore, he is a liar, and Jesus says that he has been a liar “from the beginning.” Jesus was referring back to the beginning of the Bible, when God gave Adam and Eve a simple command,
“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17).
Notice the word “knowledge,” and whatever the exact nature of this tree was, it had something to do with “knowing,” which relates back to our “minds,” which is our focus for today. Again, they were free to eat from any tree in the garden but one.
In the next chapter, the devil, the liar, shows up in the garden and says, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” Of course, that’s not what God said, and Eve set the record straight, telling him that they could eat from any tree, but it was only from the one tree that they could not eat, lest they die. But then she added something to what God did not say, that is, that they could not even “touch” the tree. Of course, God said nothing of the sort, but Eve thought that it would be good to add that restriction to God’s simple command to not eat. (Note: later, the Jews would add a myriad of restrictions to God’s simple commands, especially regarding the keeping of the Sabbath).
Enter the liar one more time saying to the woman, “You will not surely die…..but if you eat of the fruit, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:1-5). Sadly, Adam and Eve bought into the lie and then bit into the fruit. They believed that they would become like God, and the course of their lives, and the course of history, were forever changed.
Of course, there is plenty to “unpack” in this portion of Scripture, but the point is that the devil is both a liar as well as a murder, and when he showed up in the garden, he destroyed the relationship that Adam and Eve had with God. And the devil continues to lie to you and to me today, seeking to destroy any relationship that we might have with God. In fact, the Apostle Peter tells us that, “…the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He will “devour” those who do not know the truth, but who are open and willing to believe his lies.
The best defense against buying into the devil’s lies is to know “the truth.” And that’s where we will pick up the action next week.
