Latest / Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit / 48. Romans 12:2 Biblical Encouragement for Real Transformation

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48. Romans 12:2 Biblical Encouragement for Real Transformation · Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit

• 0:00
  Speaker A: As believers, we know that we are supposed to renew our minds with truth in order to be transformed. But what does it actually look like? What does Romans 12:2 really mean? That's what we're going to talk about today, how to actually be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We're going to break down the verse and we're going to give you some practical steps to begin the transformation process in a way that is easy and just a simple method for connecting with God for your transformation.
• 0:32
  Speaker B: If you're tired of leading others while secretly battling doubt, discouragement and mental warfare,
• 0:37
  Speaker A: and you want practical tools to renew your mind and walk boldly in your calling as a leader, you're in the right place.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: Welcome to Believe and become.
• 0:45
  Speaker A: We're Josh and Corina your spirit filled coaches, here to help you overcome those limiting beliefs and lead others confidently.
• 0:52
  Speaker B: If you're ready to hear God's voice more clearly, to step into your purpose and find joy and strength in the
• 0:57
  Speaker A: everyday life, silence those Bible app reminders judging you from your lock screen and let's jump in. I know you feel like something is wrong with you, like I want to change, but I just don't know how.
• 1:14
  Speaker B: You're tired of bearing the weight of strongholds, lies and unbelief. You're tired, discouraged, depleted and stuck in cycles of fear and anxiety.
• 1:23
  Speaker A: You just want clarity. You want to feel deeply connected to God and hear his voice again.
• 1:29
  Speaker B: Stop trying so hard, stop searching for answers around you and lean into an easier way of doing things.
• 1:35
  Speaker A: We are here to help you stop the negative thoughts, quiet the noise and feel deeply connected to God again.
• 1:41
  Speaker B: We will show you how to renew your mind with the truth so that you can gain freedom and be transformed.
• 1:47
  Speaker A: Go right now to joshandkarina.com coaching that's J O S H-A-N-C-O-R-I-N A.com coaching and book your first session so we can begin your transformation.
• 2:00
  Speaker B: I remember a time in my life not that long ago, 10, 15 years ago maybe, where it just felt really hard to hear God's voice. And I think I believe that I had to do something to hear Him. I had to either earn my way back into his presence or I would get so desperate where I really, really needed a word from God. And what it came down to was I had this belief that I had to do something or it was hard to hear God's voice or maybe I wasn't worthy of hearing his voice. And then I realized that since the Holy Spirit Lives inside of me. I'm always connected to him, and it's just a matter of plugging into that connection to hear his voice. And I started to renew my mind with that truth day after day. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit. That I'm always, always connected to you, that my connection to you is strong and. And in fact, I couldn't be any more connected to you than I am right now. And I would just renew my mind with that idea, that fact, day after day. And you know what? After a while, it just got easier to hear God's voice. Now I just plug in, I say, okay, God, let's talk. What do you want to talk about? And it just makes it so much easier to hear his voice. And that's really what Romans 12:2 is talking about, is how do we get the truths of God's word so deep inside of us that it actually changes us? It changes the way we live. It changes the way that we act on a daily. And it changes just the overflow of our lives, what that looks like.
• 3:33
  Speaker A: It was interesting that you said you had. You thought that you weren't worthy or that you had to work your way back into his presence. And I think ultimately, when we're struggling in these areas, it's often because we have a bad belief about ourselves or about God. Right? God requires me to do something in order to come into his presence, or I am not good enough, or I'm not worthy enough, or I'm too sinful. We have these underlying beliefs that is really what needs changed. At the end of the day, it's not about kind of the other stuff, right? It's really about what do I believe about who I am and who God is and how do I change those beliefs? Because when we get down to it, we gotta change those beliefs. It's not just the things that we're thinking about, but it's what we believe in our heart. And so that's really amazing how just recognizing I'm always connected. That truth, when you let it sink deep, it changes everything. So that's really sweet.
• 4:36
  Speaker B: I love Romans 12:2. It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible because it's a promise to us that we're not stuck. Because we can, if we take the time, if we're intentional, to renew our minds with truth, we'll be changed. I think it was so frustrating for so many years. I felt like I'm never going to change. I'm always going to be the same. And that's a bad belief in and of itself right there, that needed change. But once we get this idea that, you know, we can renew our minds and be changed. It's powerful. It's powerful. Why don't you tell em a little bit about the Greek?
• 5:11
  Speaker A: Yes. Ooh, I love this. All right, so Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And this word transformed comes from the Greek word metamorphao, which means transfigured. And so it's also the root of the word metamorphosis. So when you think about a butterfly, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, there's this whole process that happens where actually the caterpillar becomes something completely different than it was, and yet all along it had what it needed to become the butterfly. It's this really interesting thing of, like, I have what I need, but I'm also becoming. And so you have this idea of. Of metamorphosis. You can be transformed from what you are into something totally new and beautiful. But also, this word is the same word that' translated transfigured. And it's only used three times in the New Testament. And I'm sure as soon as I said transfigured, like you thought, oh, that happened to Jesus, he was transfigured. Right. But that's the only time this word is used in the New Testament is when Jesus is transfigured and then transformed in Romans 12:2 and in 2 Corinthians 3:18, that we are transformed from glory to glory, becoming like him as we behold Him. And so it's just this really beautiful picture of as I renew my mind to think like Jesus, as I encounter him and behold him, then I become like him, even in the way he was transfigured from his earthly body into his heavenly glory. Like, that's what he's doing in us. And it's just so cool that this idea of being transformed starts with the renewing of our mind. That I can begin to think about myself and believe about myself the things that God thinks and believes. And you can begin to think about yourself and believe about yourself the way God thinks and believes about you. And that is the beginning of your transformation. As you begin to get his thoughts, as you begin to encounter him and ask him to reveal his truth to you, then you begin to transform and to become more and more like Jesus. It's just. It's so cool.
• 7:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, I love that the. I've heard and read that the caterpillar already has. All the butterfly DNA is already in there. It just needs to be activated. And that's the same way you have inside of you everything that you need to live the life that God has for you that is part of who he created you to be. It's part of your identity and mind. Renewal is the key that unlocks your true identity and allows that DNA that's already in you to be expressed. So you can come out, that beautiful butterfly. You can be. You're not stuck a caterpillar any longer. You become who God really created you to be. But it's through that intentional process of renewing your mind with the truth.
• 8:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I like this idea of Steve Backlin says, renew again new to make your mind new again and again and again. That's why we do our declarations morning, noon and night. And whenever we need them, right? We do them again and again and again because our minds need to be made new again. Just like everything in your body is turning over, like your cells are dying off and being recreated. It's so crazy how God made our bodies to regenerate and our minds are the same way. You don't have to keep thinking the way that you used to think. He created you to be made new again, to. To be made new again and again and again. And as you begin to train yourself, your beliefs, your thoughts with the truth, then those places in your mind that were dead, that were dark, that were confused, they. They come alive and the old things literally die off and new things are created in you. And so it's just amazing how God, like, he says it in His Word And I think I've known these verses all my life, but I never knew what they meant. I never had revelation about them. And then you get this revelation and. And then science is like, oh, yeah, that's actually a thing. You know, it's just this. It's so cool. He tells us the secrets in His Word and then he just shows us what it really looks like. It's amazing.
• 9:29
  Speaker B: And this fills us with so much hope because as someone that used to be stuck in a bad way of thinking, our negative cycles of thinking, and I thought, really, this is the way it's going to be forever. That's just the way I am. I'm always going to be kind of a pessimist, realist, you know, But God's given us the tools. We can change our minds, we can change the way that we think. All we have to do is come into agreement with what he's already said about us. And then we get changed. And it sounds like, oh, Maybe that sounds hard to you. I actually want to tell you it's pretty easy. You just have to be intentional and do it regularly. These small changes that you make in the way that you're thinking by renewing your mind with the truth on a daily basis, that adds up pretty quick. And next thing you know, out of the overflow of our heart, our mouth speaks. Stuff will start coming out of your mouth that you go, where did that come from? Oh, I'm actually changed, I don't think the way I used to. That's the evidence that I love. That happens with everybody that we work with on mind renewal. They're Pretty soon their mouth starts saying something different. It's from their declarations, it's from the truth. And then you kind of know, oh, I'm not the same anymore.
• 10:38
  Speaker A: It's working.
• 10:38
  Speaker B: Yes, it's working.
• 10:39
  Speaker A: I love how in John 8, 31 and 32, Jesus says, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Now, we did a whole episode about how this Knowing isn't just knowledge. Knowledge is not what sets you free. Truth, knowing truth in an experiential way is what sets you free. Knowing the truth because you have encountered the truth and then remaining in that truth. That is what Jesus is talking about here. He's not just saying, read the Bible. You read it once, it's good enough, now you're going to be transformed. No, he's saying, come and learn of me. Right? He says, come and abide in me. Abide in me and learn of me. And it's so important that when we are renewing our minds with truth, that we are, that comes from a place of encounter. That it comes from a place of, this is what God has spoken to me, or this is what God has revealed to me in His Word. That it's based in an experiential relationship that we have with Jesus. And we actually have created a free guide for you. You can find the link in the show notes, but where we walk you through the process that we walk our clients through to encounter the Lord for truth, to recognize, identify those, l break agreement with them and grab hold of the truth so that you can begin to renew your mind with that truth. So I just wanted to mention that before we get to the end, like, I want you to know we are rooting for you. And there is. There are simple steps that you can take to really encounter God and to hear his voice for whatever you're going Through. You can find it@joshandkarina.com Five steps. The number five steps. I really felt like as you were sharing about the caterpillar and butterfly, that and even in your story, that there is somebody out there. You need to know that you're not stuck. You are not destined to be a caterpillar. You are not a little worm that somebody wants to squish. Like you are beautiful. And there is so much inside of you that God has already placed in there. But it's going to require that renewing of your mind and truly starting to believe what God says about you. Because when we agree with him and then we can partner with him, then we see that transformation. But it comes from that experience. It comes from that encounter.
• 12:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. We have to have that revelation behind the Word. We can read the Word, we can read the Bible and not be changed by it. How many times have you sat down, you read and I don't know if anything happened. I like to receive by faith that even if I didn't feel anything, something did happen.
• 13:14
  Speaker A: But that's a new belief.
• 13:15
  Speaker B: But that's a new belief. I think I spent a lot of years just reading the Bible because I was supposed to or I had to. And.
• 13:23
  Speaker A: And not receiving because you didn't know you could.
• 13:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe it made me feel better. Like I checked off a box that I was supposed to do, but I was not changed by the words. Until you have that experience with the Word comes alive because you're expecting the Holy Spirit to show up and illuminate those words and to speak to you through them and you're writing them down and you're excited to meet with God. That process of renewing your mind with the fact that that's even possible starts to open the door of the Word so that you can understand it better. So if you feel like I read these things, I don't understand what it's saying. You need an encounter with the author of those words. He's going to show up and he's going to explain it to you. He's got to invite him into that process. And it is amazing when we start to renew our minds with that experiential knowledge. Not just head knowledge. Head knowledge is great. We need to be smart, know our word. We need to experience the Word, put it into practice in our lives.
• 14:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. And it. I like to equate it to knowing somebody. Right. Like if. If I was talking about a celebrity. Oh, I saw this movie and it has that one celebrity, you know, so and so. Oh, yeah. I know them, but you don't really know them. You know about them, you know what they look like, you know their, what their voice sounds like. You maybe know facts about their life. But until you come into contact with them, you have a relationship, you sit down and have a conversation with them, you get to experience them in real life. You don't really. And that's the same when we read our Word and we just gather knowledge. You have an understanding of who God is. You can know who he is, can know what he's like. But until you come in to a place where you can experience him, where you come face to face, where you sit down and open your word and you encounter him there, the verses are popping off the page. That's different. That's a different kind of relationship and understanding. And so just know that God wants to meet you in those pages. He has fresh bread for you every day and a freshly spoken, alive and active word for you. So you don't have to just treat Jesus like a celebrity or treat God like that far off person that I've never walked with or talked with. He desires relationship with us just like he had in the garden with Adam and Eve. He wants that with you.
• 15:40
  Speaker B: Okay, let's give you some action steps so you can actually walk this out. We want to be practical and give you something you can walk away with today and put it, put in practice in your life. The first thing we're going to do to renewing our minds is actually paying attention to what we're thinking. The battle is actually in our thoughts. So many of us think about spiritual warfare in terms of casting out demons. I'm, you know, you know, binding and rebuking those kind of things, which, sure, you do that in some places, sometimes you have to do that. But the main battle is actually in our thoughts. Like it says in 2 Corinthians 10, 4 and 5. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. What is Paul talking about in this verse? He's talking about our thoughts, arguments, high things that are setting themselves up against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity and making it obedient to Christ. Those are all things that happen in our minds. And so I always read this and was confused by the verse for a long time. I was like, okay, this is the spiritual warfare verse. I don't know what it's about, but it's really about. You need to pay attention to your thoughts, ask the Holy Spirit to help you be aware of what you're thinking. And then you're going to take those thoughts captive and make them obedience to Christ. So that means when you have a recurring negative thought or something that pops in your head that you know the Holy Spirit will say, hey, oh, is that a thought you really want to think? You get to decide, evaluate it, and go, is that true or is it a lie? Do I want to believe that? Is that for my benefit? Is that for my good? Does it come from God? Or is it maybe something I've just was taught a long time ago and have thought for a really long time? Yeah, a lie that I started believing. So you get to evaluate it, be the judge, and say, oh, I don't like that thought. I'm going to flush it, I get rid of it, and then I'm going to replace it with the truth of what God said about me. And that's the process of mind renewal, paying attention to our thoughts. Then you have to be prepared with what the truth is so that you can replace that lie with the truth. And when you do that, that is where it really starts to work. It really starts to transform you. I spent a lot of time trying not to think thoughts. Oh, that's a negative thought. Don't think it. Don't think that that's bad.
• 18:06
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:07
  Speaker B: And then that's all you can think about. But once I realize, oh, no, actually replace it with the truth. Make it obedient to Christ. Make that thought obedient to Christ. It means I'm not going to think the lie anymore. That's where the real transformation started to happen in my life. And it'll work for you, too. It works for everybody. It's a promise from God's word.
• 18:25
  Speaker A: And I love the thought of bringing your thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ. You are taking that negative thought, you are casting it down and you are saying, no, I will not partner with you. I'm. You have to submit to what Christ says. And we have access to the mind of Christ as believers. Ephesians tells us that we have the mind of Christ. Nobody knows the. The thoughts that are in someone's mind except their spirit. And you have the spirit. That's exactly what Paul tells us, that you have the spirit of God inside of you, so you have access to his thoughts. So when you start to have those negative thoughts, we just submit them to the mind of Christ. And it's not Somewhere out there, it's already inside of you. If you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. So we pay attention to our thoughts, but then we have to be intentional to change them. And so what does that look like? Well, biblical meditation is a great place to start. That's where we take the scripture and we repeat it over and over and over. And as we are chewing on that scripture, then we begin to extract the good things from it. God says, oh, pay attention to that word. Like, I don't know if you've ever had that experience where you're reading a verse you've read before or singing a song you've sung before, you're going over something and I never thought about that word. I'm seeing it in a new light that I hadn't seen it. That's the Holy Spirit bringing your attention. He's highlighting something for you to reveal to you. And so we meditate on the Scriptures. Philippians 4:8 says, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report. If there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And so we have this idea of meditation. Biblical meditation is mentioned throughout Scripture from the beginning to the end. What you're thinking about, your thoughts and meditation is over and over and over. So you want to meditate on good things. Meditate on the works of the Lord. Meditate on the beautiful and the noble things that he's done for you. Meditate on anything that is praiseworthy, anything that has happened in your life or anything about God that you just love that has just been amazing. Meditate on those things. God, thank you so much. Oh, it was just so much fun when you, you know, took us on that. We went on that vacation and, and we got to go to that church and we just encountered you around the fire pit like we. There's just so many things that have happened throughout your life where you can see his fingerprints. Begin to meditate on those things and recognize his goodness in them. Because as we do that, then he highlights more things about himself, have greater access to the mind of Christ. You have more intentional access. You get back more easily, I think, than maybe when you didn't even know that you had that.
• 21:22
  Speaker B: And when we're talking about meditation, we're not talking about a guy sitting cross legged, humming to himself, trying to empty his mind, right? A lot most of us think about this idea of Eastern meditation that is not biblical meditation. Biblical meditation is I mean, we're already meditating on things. You're already meditating on things. Whether you realize it or not. Because we have so many thoughts every day, whatever we're thinking about continuously, we're meditating on. So for meditating on rehearsing that bad conversation you had with somebody, or the mistake that you made, or the decision that you wish you would have done differently, whatever it is that you're constantly thinking about, you're actually renewing your mind with that, you're building stronger mental pathways that automatically go to that negative conclusion. How do I know? I did that for a really long time. I'm an expert in it. And we're actually all experts in renewing our minds, and we tend to focus on those negative things. But if we are intentional to choose to think about those good things, to meditate on them, practice repeating over and over the promises of God the things he said to you, his verses that are special to you, all of those good things that Philippians 4. 8 talks about. If we rehearse those, what do you know? You're going to build automatic mental pathways that go to good. And you're not a pessimist anymore. You're instead, now you're a biblical optimist, which is the goal. We all want to be just looking for God's goodness in every situation in our lives. And you can actually train your brain to do that. That is the Beauty of Romans 12:2. It's so exciting.
• 23:00
  Speaker A: And here's the deal. When we meditate on good things, it brings good things into our lives, life. And this is not manifestation, or name it and claim it like it's. It's the reality that when we focus on the good things, we see the good things. When you focus on the negative things, when you're expecting negative things to happen, guess what? You're gonna see all the negative things. It could be as simple as if you have a more positive outlook, more optimistic perspective. You might run into somebody at work or at church and pass them in the hall, and they don't look at you, and you're like, oh, I hope they're okay. I wonder what's going on. I should go check on them. Versus if you're a pessimist, you're like, they didn't even say hi to me. I can't believe. They must not like me. They're mad at me, right? And you have this completely different conversation, meditation going on about the exact same event. And so when we're looking for good things, when we're meditating on good things. When we're grateful and thankful, then we're actually looking for those things. We're training our brain to be aware of the good things that are happening. Joshua 1:8 actually says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. So if we meditate on the Word, we will be obedient to the Word. But then he says, for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. So it's kind of biblical that when you meditate on the Word and you do what it says, you're prosperous and successful. I mean, I'm not. That's what the Bible says. So I'm just putting that out there. It's not prosperity gospel, but it's kind of in the Bible. So just think about that. When you choose choose to think about good things, you are going to begin to see good things happening in your life because you're looking for them. And so it's just a simple perspective change that really helps to shift us into the good things.
• 24:54
  Speaker B: So much of life is awareness. Life in Christ is being aware of what's available to you, being aware of what God is doing. And when we are intentional to shift our focus from what God's not doing to what he is. That awareness.
• 25:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:09
  Speaker B: All of a sudden it starts to flow out. We have more joy, we have more peace, we have more hope. Oh, that's the fruit of the Spirit. It's coming out because I made myself. I was intentional to make myself aware of what God is already doing. And that's ultimately our goal. We all want. Right. I don't know anybody that doesn't want more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self control. We all want more of those things. How do we do that? We just make ourselves aware of what God's doing, doing, meditate on those things, rehearse them in our minds, and that starts to flow out of us. Because his presence is already in you.
• 25:44
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:44
  Speaker B: And he's just waiting to come out.
• 25:47
  Speaker A: I love that. Well, a couple of other ways that we really work to change our thoughts is through declarations and encountering God, to hear this truth that he speaks over us. And next week we're going to actually talk about the process that we take our clients through to encounter God, to hear the truth and then turn that truth into declarations that you can begin to say morning, noon and night. It's your prescription. Right. Morning, noon, and night. And anytime you need it to begin to change your thoughts. And so the declarations are really simple. We've talked about them so many times on this podcast. But it's this idea of the truth that God has revealed to me, combined with scripture, turning it into a present tense I statement. There's your declaration. Maybe you didn't believe that you could do something right. When we first started writing our books, there was definitely some resistance in our beliefs about how much we would actually be able to accomplish, whether or not we would get all the way through it. So just recognizing, then we started hearing the Lord saying, you can do this. You're an author. And so we started saying, I can do this. I can do all things through Christ. I can write a book through Christ who gives me strength. I can do this. I'm an author. And we begin to renew our mind with the truth. Well, guess what? Less than a year later, we both have published books, and it was simply through renewing our minds. And so we're going to give you a little bit more about that next week. But if you would like to get our free updated guide to encounter God's truth to overcome the lies that hold you back, go to joshandkarina.com the number 5 steps and download that. It's absolutely free. We just want to come alongside you and give you the tools that you need to overcome those limiting beliefs.
• 27:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're so passionate about mind renewal, if you haven't noticed. We just are really excited about it because of the change it's made in our lives, and we want to make that available to everybody. We don't want anyone to be stuck believing lies any longer than you have to. So grab that free guide. Go through the steps with the Holy Spirit. Just listen to what he's saying to you. Renew your mind with the truth and just do it as an experiment. See if things don't start to change. After you've done that for about a week or two, it doesn't really take that long to start seeing results from this mind renewal process because it's so powerful. And we just want to see everybody set free. That is our goal, our calling, our mission in life is to see everybody set free to live the abundant life that Jesus promised you.
• 28:29
  Speaker A: Hey, friend. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds to share this podcast with someone who may need encouragement or practical tools for fighting their battle?
• 28:39
  Speaker B: Then rate and review this podcast. Help us spread the message of transformation far and wide.
• 28:44
  Speaker A: All right, time to walk back into the noise with peace purpose and maybe a tiny bit of caffeine.
• 28:49
  Speaker B: We'll meet you back next Thursday for another episode.
• 28:53
  Speaker A: Bye.