RENEWING THE MIND

There are some Scriptures that I find rather intimidating and this is one of them:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2, ESV). 

 

How can a mind be renewed?

What is more complicated and intricate than the human mind? The fact is that we cannot—through therapy or personal discipline or thinking positive thoughts—renew the mind. We might slightly change the way we think, but a complete overhaul, a full renewal of the mind? I think not.

Renewing the mind is beyond the capabilities of human endeavor—it is the work of the Creator. He made us in the first place, He can fix whatever is broken, and He can renew our mind when it gets bruised and battered  by the waves of worldliness that are constantly crashing on our beach. The word renew as used in Romans 12:2 means to “reestablish in a like-new and often improved manner.”

God has given us the agent of renewal—the Holy Spirit. He took up residence in us at salvation and He is with us throughout our entire spiritual experience. In addition, God has given us the manual of renewal—the Bible.

At salvation the Holy Spirit comes to live in us (see 1 Corinthians 6:19). It is one thing for the Holy Spirit to be a houseguest and it’s something else for Him to be active in leading, guiding, and rebuilding our lives. For most Christians, the Holy Spirit is a welcome houseguest; they are glad He has come, they are excited and thrilled about salvation, and they understand that the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity. The idea of activating the Holy Spirit in their life, however, is not a concept they either understand or participate in. Because of this, the welcome houseguest is confined to a small part of their life and never allowed to do for them all that He can and would do.

When we cooperate with the Holy Spirit and let Him flow through us, then according to 1 Corinthians 14:4, we “edify ourselves.” The word edify means to restore, to strengthen, to build up. In this passage Paul is speaking of activating the Holy Spirit through prayer and praise, through speaking in tongues. I don’t think the issue here is tongues, but Paul is encouraging us to allow the Holy Spirit to be free in us and to bring this tremendous benefit to our lives as we pray in the Spirit.

The manual of renewal, the Bible, is deeply underappreciated in large segments of today’s church. Few believers in America today “take the time” to read and study the Word for themselves. Is it any wonder that such a large portion of the church is in disarray? Is it any wonder that so much of what is called church today looks and acts so much like the world? The American church doesn’t know what’s in the manual—the Bible!

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16, ESV). We tend to think of correction as used in this sentence as being discipline, and while that is part of the meaning, the fuller meaning is “to restore to an upright or right state”—literally to lift up and put in place that which has been knocked down by life and circumstances. A large part of the ministry of the Word of God to us is to set in right order everything that makes up our lives. When we read and study Scripture, we are giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to bring our mind and spirit into contact with the living Word—and that’s a potent and healing connection!  

God’s Word brings healing and renewal to us. Listen to what the Psalmist says:

“He sent out His word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction” (Psalm 107:20, ESV). Healed, as it is used here, means “to restore, to repair, to mend.”

           

In Psalm 119:93 David says, “I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life.” The phrase “given me life” means “to recover, to revive, to return to life.” The Psalmist was describing the power that is in the Word to change us and that is why it is vital that we get the Word in us.

God’s renewal of the mind happens from the inside out and that’s why it is important that we honor and receive all that the Holy Spirit brings to us. It’s as we get the Word of God in us that through the Spirit-empowered Word we are being conformed not into the “fashion or style of the world” but into the man or woman that God has destined us to be.

Can our minds be so battered and bruised by the sick world we live in that nothing can help? Absolutely not! To Timothy, Paul offers the hope and understanding of allowing the Word of God to minister and bring His healing touch. To the Corinthians, Paul brings a message of encouragement that the mind, the heart, the spirit of the believer can be refreshed and restored by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Paul says to us through his message to the church at Rome, “Your mind can be renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit and by His word!”

BECAUSE WE KNOW HIS NAME

I am always fascinated to see how God will arrange a meeting between one of His children and a reassuring, insightful word from Scripture. God cares for every one of His children—His personal creation. It is God’s desire to give us some of His revealed wisdom in our times of need, and most frequently He does this through His Word. He will arrange for us to bump into His wisdom through what I call “an intersection.”

A few years ago I had several skin cancers removed from my legs. I had had skin cancers removed before and there was nothing particularly different or difficult about this time, but for some reason I found myself getting anxious about the procedure. Perhaps one of the reasons for the anxiety was my feeling of, “Is there no end to this?” The legalists would suggest that I felt this way because of my weak faith—and they could be right.

The day before the procedure I had one of those intersections between my need and God’s Word. As I was working at my desk, I came across an old note I had written with just Psalm 75:1-3 on it . . . nothing more. I am hopelessly curious and when I saw the note I couldn’t just throw it away. I didn’t recall why I had written it or what the verses were about, so I quickly looked up the passage:

 We give thanks to you, O God,
       we give thanks, for your Name is near;
       men tell of your wonderful deeds.

 You say, "I choose the appointed time;
       it is I who judge uprightly.

 When the earth and all its people quake,
       it is I who hold its pillars firm” (Psalm 75:1-3, NIV).

I was deeply encouraged by the reminder to give thanks in all things. And then the powerful declaration of God regarding His sovereignty hit me: “I choose the times, all of them and I judge all things righteously. When things around you are shaking and seeming like they will fall apart, it is I [God]) who holds the pillars firm.” This was a powerfully encouraging passage for me at my moment of anxiety.

As I enjoyed this word of encouragement, I realized that I didn’t understand one part of it. I was rather baffled by the phrase, “for your Name is near.” What I also didn’t realize was how much the meaning of that phrase was going to minister to me at the place of my need.

After a little research I found out that some ancient Jewish authors and biblical scholars would not write out or pronounce the name of God. They felt that to do so was sacrilegious and showed a lack of reverence so, instead, they used the abbreviation (YHWH for Yahweh) or referred to “the Name” to indicate that it was God they were speaking of. 

My search to understand this rather awkward phrase also led me to Deuteronomy 12:5: “You shall seek the place which the Lord your God shall choose . . . to put His Name and make His dwelling place . . .” (Amplified).

I discovered that the use of “name” for God is equivalent to “His presence.” The place where God puts His name is the place where the Lord Himself chooses to dwell.

The Lord quickened at least three things to my heart from these verses:

1. The passage was reminding me to give thanks. The injunction to “give thanks” is repeated within verse one, and repetition in Scripture tells me, “This is important so pay attention.” I don’t give thanks for the problems, I give thanks for His faithfulness, for the wonderful ways He has met our needs in the past, and for His unfailing love. I worship Him!
2. God is not remote from those who give thanks. He is near and He is not unaware of each of the needs we face . . . all of them . . . big and little. God is aware of everything going on in our lives and He is not removed or distant from the struggle we may be in. In Psalm 75:1 God is telling us that He chooses to make His dwelling place close to His children. Honest thanksgiving is humble thanksgiving and God dwells with the humble (see Isaiah 57:15).
3. I was reminded that He is still in charge, He is sovereign. He establishes the times for everything and when moments of tribulation come, He is the one who will hold things together.

Now listen to what God says directly to His children who love Him; to those who know His name.

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation” (Psalm 91:14-16, ESV).

Because we know His name!

FRIEND, COME UP TO A BETTER PLACE!

 I was only eighteen and in the first year of university when God began speaking to me about His plan and purpose for the rest of my life. My parents were both strong Christians and our family was very active in our church. I had received Christ as my savior as a young boy and now, in university, I was really struggling to understand what God wanted me to do. I believed He was calling me to prepare for a life of service to Him but I wasn’t sure what that meant. 

One Sunday night in early June of 1963, I was attending the regular Sunday night church service and God began to talk to me very strongly about my future. As soon as the service was over, I made a beeline for an area of the prayer room where I could be alone in prayer. I just wanted to understand what God wanted me to do—more than anything I wanted to please Him.

As I poured out my heart to the Lord, my pastor came and knelt beside me. He put his arm around my shoulders and began to pray for me. I can still hear his voice and his prayer reverberates in my heart and mind.

“Father, You call a man into Your service and give him a level of responsibility. When he has learned to handle that responsibility, You then give him increased responsibility and when he learns to handle that level of responsibility, You again increase his responsibilities.”

I didn’t understand my pastor’s prayer at that time and, frankly, did not until later in life when I began to understand Luke 14:10-11.

Nearly one-third of the recorded words of Jesus in the Gospels are in the form of parables. Parables were a popular form of communication in Jesus’ day and, in fact, during most of the Old Testament days, as well. Proverbs is a book of parables. A parable is a story that is meant to illustrate a truth.

In Luke 14 we read the Parable of the Wedding Feast. Jesus observed the invited guests attempting to figure out where the best seats were before the feast got started. The telling of the parable follows His noting what was happening as He saw the guests jockeying for position.

The core message of this parable is really quite simple: When you are invited to a feast, don’t automatically assume that you are important and try to get a seat close to the front. You may be embarrassed when the host invites someone else to take the seat you incorrectly assumed you should have. Instead, take a humble place and when the host looks around to see where everyone is located, if he wants you closer he will invite you to move, with the invitation, “Friend, come up to a better place” (Luke 14:10, NIV). And if he doesn’t move you right away, at least you won’t be embarrassed.

The host of the wedding feast is God and the principle is: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11, ESV. See also 1 Peter 5:5-6). Jesus takes the axe to self-promotion within the Kingdom of God.

The greatest struggle for most of us is the waiting for His invitation to “come up to a better place.” There is only one host of the “wedding feast” and we have been instructed to wait for His invitation. In the meantime we are to “humble ourselves” and take the lowest seat. We are never to make an assumption but we are to wait for His invitation.

 “Friend, come up to a better place” is an invitation that is both rich with meaning and a little scary. To be invited to step out into the unknown is almost always intimidating; what we don’t know or can’t clearly see tends to be unsettling. The openness of the invitation helps us to recognize that there are levels of understanding and growth for us as we increase in our knowledge and move closer to Him. God will never move anyone until He knows he or she is ready for the “better/higher place.”

The word friend is loaded with meaning. The original word used here means that because God sees that we love His Son, He extends to us the love that He has for His Son. Think of that! God loves us with the same love and affection that He has for Jesus and He freely extends it to us because He sees that we love Him.

I cannot think of any other word I would rather have the Lord use to address me than “friend.” Couple that with an invitation to, “Come up to a better place,” and the greeting is really special. When we keep a humble attitude toward who we are and what we know, and maintain a strong relationship with the Lord, we will hear Him say, “Friend, come up to a better place.”

THE FAITH OF HUDSON TAYLOR

I have just finished reading a fascinating book entitled, “Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.”

For those who don’t know who Hudson Taylor was, let me give you a brief overview. Taylor was one of the early British missionaries to take the gospel to China. In 1853 at just 21 years of age, Hudson Taylor left England for China. As a young man he was deeply burdened for the millions of Chinese who had never heard about Jesus Christ. At the beginning of Taylor’s ministry in China, only a handful of missionaries were there and their activities were severely restricted by the Chinese government.

Hudson Taylor was a radical missionary. When he arrived in China, he was dismayed at the conduct of most of the “missionaries.” Many of them spent their time acting as translators for English businessmen and diplomats who were active primarily in a few of the large cities.  Taylor felt that the “missionaries” were worldly and he wanted little to do with them.

Let me list just a few things that made Taylor a radical and a spiritual giant:

·            Taylor was not content to reach a few people in one of the large cities. He was burdened for the large segments of the nation where no missionaries had gone. His passion for souls caused him to turn away from established missions and form his own ministry called China Inland Mission (CIM).

·            Taylor did not want to live in a missions compound with other missionaries; he wanted to live where the people lived, eat what they ate, and wear “native” clothing. Missionaries of the day just did not do this.

·            Perhaps the most radical departure from traditional missionary thinking was Taylor’s approach to financial support. Taylor believed that the Lord wanted him to go to China and, therefore, the Lord would provide the funds needed for his support and for the evangelistic outreach to the nation. Taylor never publicly asked for funds but believed that he was to pray and trust God for what was needed.

When Taylor died in 1905 he had never wavered from these principles. The organization that Taylor began was responsible for 800 missionaries going to China and the establishment of 125 schools. After his death, it was said about Taylor that “no other missionary since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more systematised plan of evangelising a broad geographical area than Hudson Taylor.”

Taylor’s desire to evangelize all of China and to do it “by faith and prayer” was sorely tried in 1868. Taylor took a party of missionaries to the city of Yangchow to establish a new mission but problems developed when their mission premises were attacked, looted and burned during a riot.

Unfortunately, the international outrage at the Chinese for the attack on British nationals caused the China Inland Mission and Taylor to be criticized in the British press, and almost started a war.

The heavy criticism by the British press caused somewhat of a crisis within CIM, as the level of donations from the public dipped to a dangerously low level. But in the midst of this “crisis” something amazing happened! Taylor continued to pray intensely about the financial needs of the ministry and suddenly he received an unsolicited letter from one of CIM’s supporters. The supporter, who had been regularly sending small gifts, indicated that in prayer the Lord had spoken to him about increasing his giving—and he did. After a short while, the man wrote again and said that the Lord had spoken to him about increasing his giving again—and again he did.

What makes all this amazing is that the man who was writing had no finances of his own! In fact, he had a ministry to orphans that he supported entirely through prayer. Like Taylor, this man from Bristol, England, did not make public appeals for finances but prayed and trusted God. He had about 2,000 orphaned children in his care—and his name was George Mueller. Mueller was deeply burdened for the lost in China and wanted to help evangelize the nation. His faith giving went from just relatively small gifts to nearly $24,000 per month (in today’s dollars) and this was done while he continued to pray in the funds for his own orphanage.

As I thought about this amazing story of two giants of faith and how God used them, I was struck with a new understanding of Matthew 18:19: “If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” (ESV). In the original language, the word agree comes from two words meaning “together” and “to sound” or, better put, “to sound together.” The word in the Greek is sumphoneo, from which we get the word symphony. It is highly charged with the meanings of harmony, accord and agreement. Few things are more beautiful than an orchestra that is tight in its harmony and tempo. 

 

In China, Hudson Taylor prayed for finances for the ministry to continue and not be diminished.  At the same time, 6,000 miles away, George Mueller was praying that he could be involved in reaching the lost in China. Whether they ever realized it or not, they had come into agreement in prayer. God used Mueller’s faith to be coupled with Taylor’s faith—and the kingdom of God was expanded.

I had always limited Matthew 18:19 to mean having prayer with someone I knew or was personally meeting with. I understand now that when God burdens me to pray for something or someone, it doesn’t matter if I know them or not. I am praying first in agreement with the Holy Spirit who has led me to pray and also with that other person. I will never know just what my prayers, done in this manner, accomplish this side of heaven but that’s okay with me. The revelation of what God did through Mueller and Taylor has put a new intensity into my prayer times for people in nations where heavy persecution is taking place.