“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” - Romans 12 : 1-2

Renewing the mind? We have heard this so much as Christians, but what does it actually mean? In the context of this letter to the Romans from chapters 1 to 11 what does the word renewing mean here?

Most people will tell you that it means to get your mind to line up with the Bible and the more you read and study the Bible and get revelation on it the more your mind will be renewed. Now I have no problem with this but I don’t believe that this tells the complete story! This definition although helpful does not tell us what renewing the mind is. In fact, it just assumes what it is! 

Renewing here in Romans 12 : 2 means “to make new” or “back to new” or “new again.” It is a statement that tells us that once our minds were new, then they became old, and now they need to be new again. It has everything to do with all that Paul has been saying in Romans chapters 5 - 8. This statement here is the conclusion of all that Paul had previously written. 

It is talking to us to renew our minds to the fact that we have died to the flesh and are now alive in the Spirit. When we are in Christ we are now alive in the spirit and are free from the flesh and Adam.

God's Nature is in you, you have been transferred from living in Adam to living in Christ. Your spirit was made righteous and you were given a new nature, the God nature, his desire and encouragement to you is that you now walk in this nature and this nature becomes your daily experience. Your new spirit in Christ is empowered by a new position in Christ and it would be alien and strange to go back to that old place under the law where you were under the dominion of sin. 

It is the desire of God that you renew your mind to this amazing reality that you have died to your old inherited sin nature in Adam and have become a new creation in Christ in your new nature from God. To take every thought captive and live now from your new creation spirit man.