Be Transformed
But how do we renew our mind? How do we change what we are thinking?
In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 Paul tells us that we are to take every thought captive by making them obedient to Christ. The insinuation in this passage is that the strongholds that hold us captive are in the way we think and that when we change our thought patterns we change the trajectory of our life.
The facts are not different—IT’S THE FILTER.
The filters you have shape how you see life.
A good example is in Numbers 13 & 14—How the 12 spies saw the land
The children of Israel were getting ready to go into the Promised Land. They wanted to make sure that it was everything that God had said it would be. (How many times do we do that?)
Moses sent twelve spies to investigate. The reports came back different. Ten of the spies had one filter and two of them had a different one. They all reported that the land was good, flowing with milk and honey and grapes so big they had to carry them between two poles.
When the ten spies gave their report on the land in Numbers 13:31-33 they were looking through a defeated lens.
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” 32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
Joshua and Caleb gave a different view in Numbers 14:7-8
“The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land! 8 And if the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey.” When we take those thoughts captive and change the filter to see things the way God sees then our hope is restored.
