Romans 12:2 “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.”
Now that we have established the difference between the understanding of our spirits and our minds, we can more clearly explain how our spiritual growth is also directly linked to the renewing of our minds. In the scripture quoted above the apostle Paul tells us to be transformed from this world through the renewing of our minds. The reason he tells us that is because our behaviour is determined by the way in which we think. And so as our minds are renewed to think in line with the word of God, our behaviour will change accordingly. There is nevertheless another very important aspect to the renewing of our minds, which is the feeding of our spirits. We have already established that our spirits are fed with the word of God. What we have not yet discussed is the correlation that exists between the word of God which our minds understand and the word of God with which our spirits are fed. Let me explain. Our spirits can never grow beyond the degree to which our minds have been renewed. In other words we cannot have a strong spirit while at the same time having a carnal mind. So why is that? The reason is simply because; the word of God enters our spirits through our minds. In other words the word of God does not bypass our mind to reach our spirit, for if it was possible for the word of God to bypass our minds to enter our spirits then it would be possible for one to be strong in spirit and yet be carnal in their thinking. But that is not possible, for whenever scripture speaks of carnal believers it always refers to them as also being weak in spirit. And so we can say it this way, our spirit is fed with that which our mind understands. Therefore we can say that when the scripture speaks of renewing our minds to God’s word, it is referring to our gaining spiritual understanding of God’s word. So how do we reconcile that truth with the truth which we discussed in the previous section, i.e. that our spirits already have full understanding of God’s word? Again it helps to look at the natural to better understand the spiritual. And so, one way of understanding the concept is to think of our spirit as being the “body” of our spirit, and our spirit’s understanding as being the “mind” of our spirit. In the natural, the food we eat nourishes our physical bodies not our intellect. In other words our minds do not gain knowledge and understanding through the food we eat, but rather through that which we see and hear. In the spirit, that principle is exactly the same, i.e. the spiritual food we eat nourishes our spiritual “bodies” so to speak, not our spiritual understanding. In other words our spiritual understanding does not increase through the spiritual food that we eat, for as we stated earlier, our spiritual understanding does not come from an external source bur rather directly from the Holy Spirit residing in our spirits. The growth of our spiritual “bodies” on the other hand does originate from an external source, i.e. reading, meditating on and being taught God’s word. So why is it important to feed our spiritual “bodies” so that they can grow strong? Again we can have a clearer understanding of the concept in the spiritual if we look at the natural. In the natural if our bodies are weak then we cannot perform normal physical acts that allow us to function properly in this life. In the same manner, if our spiritual “bodies” are weak then we cannot perform normal spiritual acts that allow us to function properly in the realm of the spirit. We will discuss this concept in more detail in the section dealing with our acting on the word of God.
1 Corinthians 3:1-2 “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. (2) I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the apostle Paul reveals to us that because the church at Corinth were negligent in the renewing of their minds, there were certain truths in God’s word that Paul could not teach them, because they just would not be able to understand him even if he tried to teach them. In other words their spirits were being fed with that which their minds could understand, and nothing more. And so because their minds could only grasp the milk of God’s word and not the solid food of His word, their spiritual diet remained milk.
Hebrews 5:11-13 “of whom we have much to say and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. (12) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. (13) For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.”
Evidently the church in Jerusalem were in the same condition as the church at Corinth, for in the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit reveals to us that they also could only understand the milk of God’s word, and even those truths they could barely grasp, for He says that they needed to be taught the first principles once again. And so we see that because of carnal mindsets the church in Jerusalem couldn’t understand the solid food of God’s word and their spiritual diet therefore also remained milk.
Luke 24:32-45 “And they said to one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?" … (45) And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”
The scripture quoted above clearly illustrates the point that our spirits are only fed with that which our minds understand. The context of this portion of scripture is that our Lord Jesus had appeared to two of His disciples after He was raised from the dead and walked with them on the road to Emmaus, and while He walked with them He taught them the word of God. When the disciples said that He opened the scriptures to them they were referring to our Lord opening their understanding to God’s word, for later that evening when our Lord appeared to the disciples in the inner room that’s exactly what He did. The very important point that I want you to see from this passage however, is that their spirits only began to burn after they began to understand God’s word. And so we see that it was the word of God which they understood with their minds, that went down into their spirits thus causing their spirits to begin to burn. In other words their spirits were being fed with the word of God which their minds could understand.
Colossians 1:9 “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.”
So the question is then asked, how do we get spiritual understanding of God’s word? The simple answer is prayer. In the passage of scripture quoted above the apostle Paul prayed for the church at Colossi to be filled with spiritual understanding. As we saw earlier, it is only God who can give us spiritual understanding of His word. And so when it comes to the renewing of our minds to the word of God, the very first thing that we are to do is to pray as Paul prayed, and ask the Lord to give us spiritual understanding of His word.
Ephesians 1:15-18 “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, (16) do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: (17) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, (18) the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above we see once again that the apostle Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus to receive spiritual understanding of God’s word, for he prayed that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened. The apostle who received more revelation knowledge than any other was the apostle Paul, and clearly the Holy Spirit had taught Paul to pray for that revelation. And so if the Lord’s anointed apostle could only receive revelation knowledge of the word of God through prayer, then we are no different. We too will have to pray and ask the Lord to give us spiritual understanding of His word, for it is only when we receive spiritual understanding of the word of God that our spirits will begin to grow to reach the full potential that God always intended, for our spirits can only be fed with that which our minds understand. And so we can clearly see from the scriptures in this section that our spiritual growth is directly linked to the renewing of our minds.
Michael E.B. Maher
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