transformation of the mind

God’s ways and methods are incomprehensible to the natural mind. Perhaps the most difficult of all transformations is the transformation of the mind. Every inclination of the natural mind rebels against transformation.

The transformation from living from natural mind to being Christ-minded (I call it being God conscious) requires a great deal of submission to the ways of God. Walking in harmony with Him feels unnatural and dangerous to the natural mind. At the point of these feelings arising, we have a choice to make – will we subdue our feelings and trust that God knows what He is doing or will we take matters in our own hands in order to feel better?

When we decide to take matters in our own hands, we are choosing independence from God. To mask our desire for independence from God, we create a façade that looks godly. We sit in the place of God putting ourselves forth as God. In other words we live from the natural mind but call it God. In our own mind, our thought processes and actions are justified if we attach God to them.

During a gathering of church leaders, there was debate over how to handle a situation. One of the leaders spoke rather emphatically the following words. “We can do things Glen’s way and wait for God to move or we can take care of it ourselves.” These words came from the natural mind, a mind that was unwilling to wait on God. The inclination of the natural mind is to forge ahead in action since God seems to be absent at the time. Scripture repeatedly tells the stories of people who took matters into their own hands and acted independently of God. Every one of those stories ends in disaster.

For me, the greatest transformation of my mind occurred, not on some mountaintop, but in a several periods that I call my valleys of the shadow of death. Even though I had been a pastor and a church planter, yet my mind was still primarily operating in a state of self-consciousness. God began to invite me to walk and live in a different way, not according to my thought patterns but according to His paradigms. For a time, I felt like He was my enemy as He targeted my natural mindsets. He took aim at what I had become as I had followed the dictates of the natural mind. However, Each time I have walked through one of the valley periods, I have emerged transformed.

As you enter your own valley of the shadow of death, allow the transformation of your mind by living according to the invitation of God. Resist the urge to take matters into your own hands. As you find yourself in the depths of despair, resist the urge to give up on God. When you finally feel like you cannot go on, look up, breakthrough is near. The entire journey through the valley of the shadow of death will transform your mind.