Renew Renew Renew
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
– Romans 12:2
At our retreat last year, we dug deep into Romans 12:1-10 as a staff, but this verse, in particular, stood out to me. There’s something to say about transformation, renewal, and discernment.
As followers of Christ’s way, we want to be transformed along the journey, but Paul reminds us the only way to do so is through renewing our minds. Notice it doesn’t say to do it once – but continuously!
While “repentance,” which we hear about in the gospels, means to change the way we think, “renewing our minds" means to orient ourselves back to Christ’s way of thinking over and over again.
Do you remember Blockbuster Video? When I was growing up, we would rent movies from there all the time. If we needed more time with the movie, then we’d go to renew our rental.
Sometimes we did it because we didn’t have time to watch the movie! Other times, we did it because we wanted to watch it again or because it was a difficult storyline to grasp.
I guess sometimes you have to do things over and over again in order for it to make sense. Living with faith is a lot like that too.
Renewal in the Christian life looks like a lot of things: reading your Bible, engaging in spiritual disciplines, challenging your assumptions and expectations, plus so much more. A lot of times, renewal might feel like discomfort.
But not only does this process of renewal help us see God’s will in the world with more clarity, it leaves us transformed in the process as well.
Now I don’t know about you, but I think I need to go renew my mind a little...
Matt Snyder, Director of Communications, First Baptist Decatur