Repentance is a mind word because repentance is also a mental choice. So what is the definition of repentance? Repentance is changing your mind to the extent that you change your life. To achieve real happiness in our lives, the Bible tells us to repent.
The Mind Word “Repentance” Is Scientifically Up-to-Date
Changing our mind (if we truly change our minds) means that our actions will change as well. Happiness is only lastingly achieved with a life that has changed to the extent that it supports a feeling of happiness. So, to repent is not all that bad after all, is it? Repentance is a concept for changing your life that is very up-to-date as far as our recent neuro-scientific discoveries go. (We will return to this teaching as a principle for developing mental muscle in a subsequent article.)
Repent = change your mind = change your life
Our Minds Need a Complete Renovation
When we come to Christ, we are to be renewed in our minds. A complete new mind-style is needed for a new lifestyle.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. [Romans 12:2]
In simple terms it means we are to start thinking like God thinks; and then we will be happy and loving and kind and super-effective — like He is. We may not be able to complete the renovation in our lifetime. But think of what we can do if we start today.
It’s a Mind Word Because It’s a Choice
Look again at Romans 12:2 and you will see that it has a negative command, “Don’t be squeezed into the mold of this world…” and then a positive one, “…be transformed…” Two very different ways of thinking are contrasted for us. Choose to think like the world and be squeezed into its mold or choose to be transformed! Thinking “like the world” is thinking without God in your equation. The transformation of our minds is the only way to a transformed life.
Here’s Where to Start
Perhaps you could start your transformation this way. Choose one of the words in Paul’s description of God’s life, which he called the fruit of his Spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. [Galatians 5:22-23]
Saturate your mind with it; meditate on it; repeat it over and over during the day and practice it. Start deliberately making it the way you think about yourself and others. Act it out in your daily contacts; dream about becoming a living example of it. Pray for God’s help. And in 40 days look back and see how much has changed in you!
Try naming some choices that create our world’s mind-style by comparison.
So far we have been thinking only of changing our thoughts.
Next, we’ll look at our attitudes. That’s another mind word.
Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. If we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind (which is enslaving us) to become instruments of change for a better world by recognizing from where our value as humans is derived. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln
DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth. Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are. Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth. INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence and Happiness, is a great resource.