EPISODE 0069 | Repentance Starts With Your Mind

Nov 20

THESE NOTES ACCOMPANY EPISODE 0069

Your thoughts shape your life. In this episode, Pastor Stephen teaches how God transforms us by renewing our minds. Jesus emphasized the importance of loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind—a profound shift from outward behavior to inward transformation. Discover why behavior modification isn't enough and how only a changed heart, guided by the Holy Spirit, can lead to a transformed mind.

Episode Transcript

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 HEAR, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the Lord alone. LOVE the Lord your God with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your STRENGTH.

This last word, “Strength” was a very broad word that gave emphasis like an adverb, Very or Much. It was so broad it was often interpreted differently by each Rabbi.

Here’s how Jesus, our great rabbi or shepherd, emphasized by the word “Meod”.

Matthew 22:37-40 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Mark 12:30-31 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Notice Mind is what Jesus emphasized with the word “Meod”. He is teaching us something that is echoed by the Apostle Paul in:

Romans 12:1-2 “and so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Here’s a big idea:

God Transforms Your Life by Changing The Way You Think.

Why do we need to change the way we think?

Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

Proverbs 14:12 There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.

The way you think leads to death.

Ephesians 6:11 Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.

Methodos in the Greek – down a road or pathway… how you think leads you down a road or pathway that leads to death.

The way God thinks leads to life.

John 6:63 The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Many of us focus on behavior modification but that won’t be enough, why? because the way God changes you is inside out.

Only a new heart results in a changed mind.

Nicodemus was a religious guy, good guy…but something was still missing.

John 3:3-7 3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” 4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” 5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’

Behavior modification versus life transformation.

Romans 8:11 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

God transforms us from the inside out.

The Apostle Paul when writing to the church at Thessalonica, primarily of Greek influence, helps us understand how this process works.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul is helping those in this church, understand how to think differently about their life. They were used to seeing everything from the outside in.

Now you need to think differently. In order for God to transform your whole life, you need to understand how it works.

· Spirit – born again by the power of the Holy Spirit the moment you believed the Gospel about Jesus.

· Soul – Your mind your will and your emotions – Thinker, Feeler, Chooser.

· Body – How you relate to the physical world around you.