Transformation Part 2: Renew Your Mind In Christ

If we could not understand anything else about that passage (Romans 12:2), can you understand this? What is the mind when it’s not made new? Well, it’s going to be the soul anyway; it’s always the soul. New or old, it’s the soul; it’s old, that’s all, I didn’t make myself clear, perhaps: it’s old. If it’s not new, it’s old. Now then, I will ask you a question, and again, this is a little bit off the subject. By the renewing of your mind, can you tell me when your mind is the oldest? When do you feel it is the oldest? When does it feel the oldest to you first thing in the morning, brother? The mind always feels the oldest the first thing in the morning.

I believe your experience is the same as most brothers and sisters. You can almost count the cobwebs that you feel on the mind in the morning. Brother, why is that? Why do we feel so old in the morning? Why is it so important that the mind be renewed, and why is it so important that it be renewed in the waking of the day? Well, let me deal with the last part first. Do you know what the word Lucifer means? Son of the morning, Lucifer, according to Ezekiel, is the anointed cherub of God. He was called Son of the Morning. And he must have had about one-third of the universe to rule over as an archangel. And he was the Son of the Morning; the morning was the time of his dominion. And then Lucifer fell, and he not only lost his position, his kingdom, the part of the kingdom he ruled, fell with him, and he looked no longer the son of the morning. But he became the prince of the night. And they love darkness more than light.

Now, brothers, God has made us the sons of the morning. We have taken His rule, and we are sons of the morning. If you will read the Psalms, you will see over and over and over that God’s call to the redeemed is in the morning. We are children of the morning.

Now that’s off the subject. What does it mean to be renewed in the mind? It’s very, very simple. The mind is the greatest part of the soul, and so, when the man Adam sinned, he became the old man. And with the fall of all of Adam, the main part of Adam was his mind. And it became old. Old, old in its thinking, old in its ways. Primarily, brothers and sisters, it is just in antiquity. It is enlarged and it is not quickened and alive, and it is not in newness, and that’s very simple, but brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus is Newness. He is not only the same yesterday, today, and forever, but He is forever new. He is forever new. To set the mind on the Spirit is the same thing as being renewed in the mind.

When the mind turns toward the Spirit, Lord, oh Lord. When the mind turns toward Christ, Lord, this day I will eat of the tree of life. Lord, you are my Lord. Oh Lord, may I not have my mind this day, but may I have your mind. The Spirit has a mind. The Spirit has a mind that was supposed to be your mind and my mind, but instead, the mind that was supposed to be set upon the mind of Christ in the Spirit has been set into oldness. And before we are converted, it is set on the flesh. Now then, brothers, the mind has to be turned back to the Spirit and touch the life of the Spirit. A prayer to just pray in the morning is, Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord, may I be new in you today. Lord, be my life and be my mind. And just stay with him. Just stay there before the Lord until you begin to sense the quickening. My brothers and sisters, a dear brother in Christ told me this once. And I think I have just daily considered this before the Lord. He once said to me, really clearly, ” Brother Gene, if you do not touch the Lord in the morning, all day long, you will be old.” And I have never gotten away from that. There, I have to say to him, brother, there have been one or two or three or four times when that’s not true. About noon, things got so bad, and I got so desperate. I was just so torn up and so distraught with what I did from 6 a.m. till noon, that I came to the Lord, and I really touched him. And he did something in my life. But oh, the mess I made out of things before I came and had the mind set on the Spirit.

Now, brothers and sisters, as the Lord Jesus Christ in here touches your mind, as your spirit touches your soul, quickens your mind, the mind come under the control of the newness of the Spirit. Paul said, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And then he goes on in Corinthians to say, For we have the mind of Christ. Brothers to have the mind of Christ simply means that more and more and more we turn our mind to the Lord Jesus, we touch the Lord Jesus, we exercise our spirit, and out of the spirit the spirit touches the soul. If I could explain. A ball of cotton, and let us say that some way, with perhaps a long type of needle, I was able to inject into the very depth of that ball, red dye. Little by little, the red dye would spread from within, and it would begin not only to make red the inside, but it would come more towards the middle and finally out of the middle until I would begin to see it touching the outside, until finally, little by little, the ball would be perfectly red.

Deep inside, the Lord Jesus has put himself, and the more we turn to him, the more the red dye expands. Now, brothers and sisters, we have to put ourselves on the altar before the Lord. We have to deal with the world. Then we have to set our minds on the Spirit; we have to be renewed in our mind, being transformed in the mind. Now the very same thing is what Paul said so beautifully in 1 Corinthians: if I go to the mirror and look in it, who is the real me, or the mirror? I’m real. Alright, who is real, me, or Christ? Christ said I am the way and… the word…which should be translated as ” reality. I am the way, not the truth, but I am the way, the reality, and the life. He is the reality; I am the reflection; therefore, I am the mirror, and He comes and I behold Him. I just behold Him. I, the mirror, and He comes, and I behold him; I just behold him. I, the mirror, look at him, and I just behold him. His image is reflected in me.

The Lord said in Genesis 1, “Then let us make man in the image of God.” Colossians says that Jesus Christ is the image of God. Colossians says that the thing I am made in the image of is Jesus Christ, so I just reflect the image of Christ as He is before me, and I just behold him, I just stand there and behold him, and then I become the most marvelous mirror in the whole universe. I become a mirror that can be changed. I can become a mirror that can be changed from glory into glory into glory into glory, until I not only reflect him, but I bear his image and become His image. Paul said, I travail for you until Christ is formed in you. Deep inside of me, Christ has been formed. Deep inside of you, Christ has been formed. And then I give myself to Christ, then I turn away from all negative things, and then I daily set my mind upon the Spirit. And now Christ is not only formed, but I am conformed to Him. And as I conform myself to Him, I am transformed into His image. Praise the Lord. As I am changed from glory unto glory, the final stage, hallelujah, the final stage is when I am glorified.

What does that mean? Let’s say that there was water in that. and then let’s say I put some Lipton tea in there, and I stirred it up. And then I put some more Lipton tea in there and stirred it some more. And put some more Lipton tea in there and stirred it some more. And I would no longer have water, would I? I would have water and tea. And the more tea I put in there, the more tea this becomes until finally it is filled with tea, and brothers, it has become “teafide.” And the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, is within us in our spirit, and then He transforms our souls, and then from our souls, He emanates to translate, to glorify even the body.

Well, that’s too much to get into now. We’ll just worry about the soul right now, about having the mind set on the spirit and having the mind renewed in the Lord. Now there is one other step to the transformation: the man who is the sinner, the man who is saved, the man who has the life of the Lord, then he learns that he lives in the flesh, then he goes to the experience of living in the soul and the wilderness, and then he learns to be in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, God’s got us all the way up to zero. Then He says, “Now, I can begin.” And deep inside of you, you’ve got a little bitty spark in you. You’re all the way up to zero, then he says, “Before we can move any further, you have to come to me and offer your life as a living sacrifice.” You have to deal with the world, and then you have to turn daily and set your mind on the spirit. Then he says just one other thing, and this is borne out not only in scripture, but it is borne out in the very work of the cross. It is part of the very dying of Christ, it is part of the very redemption, it is as much a part of your salvation as the blood of the cross, and that is, brothers, the dealing that the Lord Jesus himself sovereignly puts upon us. It is here that we really have to be before the Lord. Here we have to be on the cross.

The final is the consuming of the outward man, that the inward man might be renewed. That the inward man, the soul, through the spirit, might be renewed. Then the outward man, the soul as it is attached to the body, might be consumed. Again, I want to urge you to read The Release of the Spirit (Watchman Nee). Down in East Texas, where I come from, we have old farmers who come out on Saturday, and they get a piece of wood and a knife, and they sit there and they do like this, with a piece of wood all day long till it’s just gone. They whittle, and this is what the Lord has to do with the outward man. He just whittles him away. He whittles him away. Now, we have to be on the altar as our body because the Lord is going to whittle it away. We talked about this this afternoon, but I just wanted to put it in the context of the Word of God, that the Lord is constantly consuming those who are moving into the body. The Lord is constantly whittling away those who would be membered according to Romans 12:4-5. And from that point on, it’s the matter of being built up in the church. In a real, honest, practical, local church. That book was written to the church in Rome.