Renew Your Mind | GRACE, THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL by Andrew Wommack

Renew Your Mind

A friend of mine in a church once heard me teach on born-again believers being dead to sin. He didn’t say anything to me while I was ministering, but I listened to the tapes later and heard his comments. After I left, he had stood up and ridiculed this truth, saying, “I don’t understand what Andrew was trying to say, but anybody can tell by observation that we still have this tendency toward sin. Although I hate to disagree with him, he’s totally wrong in this area. We still have a tendency toward sin!”

I’m not saying that we don’t have a tendency, but I am saying that the tendency now is not a nature that compels us toward sin. It’s just an unrenewed mind—and that mind is a very compelling force.

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Virtual Reality

When you go over that first high peak on a roller-coaster and start coming down the hill at breakneck speed, you physi-cally feel as if your stomach is coming up into your throat. Do you remember that feeling? It was based on fact—actually riding the roller-coaster. It’s something that really happened. But your mind was also involved. Therefore, by using a virtual reality system on your eyes and ears, you can fool your mind into thinking you’re back on that roller-coaster again. Then, as you “go down that first hill,” you can physically experience the feeling of your stomach coming up into your throat feeling again—even though it’s not really happening. You can experi-ence those same physical sensations and feelings as before by nothing more than inducing it through the mind.

You can do the same thing with someone who has a problem going round and round and round without feeling sick and throwing up. They could be sitting absolutely still with a virtual reality system on. However, because that system is feeding their mind images of going round and round and round, you can induce that same feeling—even to the point of that person throwing up—with nothing physical actually happening. No longer are there physical things driving it. It’s all in the mind. The mind has been taught how to react to sight and sound. The mind can induce many of these same responses that were once induced by actual physical reality.

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The old man used to drive our thinking. Because of that, we experienced lust and desire for sin. It was true that there was something inside each of us—a nature—that drove us toward sin. But that nature died the moment we became born again. If you are born again, you’re no longer being driven toward sin by some part of you that is—by nature—a child of the devil. All that’s happening now is that something’s playing with your mind. Satan plays on these old thought patterns that we had toward sin. It’s our unrenewed mind that drives us to sin. In order to break this, we must recognize that Hey, this isn’t really happening!

If you knew that you had a virtual reality system on and understood that you were really just sitting in a chair, you could actually keep your mind (and body) from “experiencing” the same degree of feeling and motion. If you knew that it was these things on your head covering your eyes and ears that were the true source of these thoughts—and not reality—you could control your reactions and response to it. By acting on that knowledge—This isn’t really happening, but is just being imposed upon me—you could calm yourself down, lessen the sick feeling, and keep yourself from throwing up.

You can do the same thing spiritually, by saying, “I don’t care what things look like. I know I’m dead to that old sin nature that drove me at one time. That thing died with Christ and now it’s gone. I have a brand-new righteous nature on the inside of me and I refuse to submit any longer to this old

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the renewing of
Christian life is
The key to the
the mind.
GRACE, THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL

programming.” You might experience some of the same emotions that you had before you were born again, but the truth is that you are dead to that sin. You are no longer being driven to live it. It’s just an unrenewed mind that keeps these thoughts coming. And as long as your mind remains

unrenewed, you’ll continue operating the way you did before under the same impulses, situations, and temptations. But as you renew your mind, you’ll be able to overcome them. The key is renewing your mind!

Transformed by Renewal

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

Romans 12:1,2

The word “transformed” here is the Greek word metamor-phoo.1 It’s the word from which we get “metamorphosis.” A little caterpillar spins a cocoon and then comes out a butterfly. If you want this kind of change in your life, the way it happens is by the renewing of your mind.

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The key to the Christian life is the renewing of the mind. When you were born again, your spirit changed—but your natural mind didn’t. It remained unrenewed. You don’t need more of God in your heart. You already have all of God there. Everything you need is already in your born-again spirit—the life of God, the faith of God, the joy of God, the peace of God, the anointing of God, and everything else that’s of God—but it’s only going to manifest itself in your life to the degree you renew your mind.

If you still think that you’re just an old sinner saved by grace and it’s just a matter of time before that sin nature drives you to do something, you’re believing something contrary to Scripture. Stop embracing this wrong idea and confessing, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” Acknowledge instead the truth that your old nature’s hold on you has been broken. You are now dead with Christ to sin. All you’re dealing with now is what Romans 6:6 calls, “the body of sin.” It’s not the actual sin nature itself, but the body it left behind.

Twitching Corpses

Physical death is when your spirit separates from your body.

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

James 2:26

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sin anymore.
to live unto
We don’t have
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When someone’s spirit leaves their body, that’s death. Although that spirit goes to be with the Lord, it leaves behind a body. For a brief period of time, that body doesn’t decay, but still looks like the person who once lived in it. As a matter of

fact, a dead body can still have some reactions. For instance, if you cut a snake’s head off, the body will slither around and appear alive. If you chop off a chicken’s head, it’ll flop around too. Even though it’s dead, the body can still react.

A friend of mine worked in the morgue on the thirteenth floor of Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas. One time he pulled out a dead man on a slab and then turned around to get some-thing. When he looked back, this body had sat up with its eyes and mouth wide open. He was just sitting there with his arms dangling at his side. My friend nearly jumped out the window! He thought this guy was alive and it scared him.

My friend ran and got somebody. They came back in, checked this fellow out, and pushed the body back down. Even though this guy was dead, electrical types of reactions were causing his body to twitch and move. He was totally dead, but his body was still reacting.

Our old man is dead, but he left behind a “body.” I’m not talking about our physical flesh and bones body. I mean the programming in the mind—the attitudes and wrong thinking. That’s “the body of sin” that Paul was talking about, and we

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need to know this: “Our old man is crucified with [Jesus]” (Rom. 6:6).

Then, the next step is to destroy that body of sin. We do that by systematically tearing down those wrong thoughts and emotions with the Word of God and replacing them with godly thoughts and emotions. The end result of this process called renewing the mind is “that henceforth we should not serve sin” (v. 6).

The good news is that Jesus went to the very root of the sin problem. He dealt decisively with that sin nature, and—in Christ—we also have died to sin. Therefore, we don’t have to live unto sin anymore. If we just knew and understood this, it would change our life!

Alive unto God

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

Romans 6:8

We are dead with Christ, but living with Him is dependent upon what we know.

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

Romans 6:9

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We need to arm ourselves by getting the same mind that Jesus now has toward sin.

It’s “knowing” again. As these two verses say, “We believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that….” If you don’t

know this, if you aren’t really established in it, then you won’t experience that resurrec-tion life, victory, and power that belongs to us. You have to know “that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him” (v. 9).

Most people understand that Jesus isn’t struggling with sin. He’s not up there denying Himself and trying to put down His old sin nature. With Christ, that’s over with. Jesus is now completely holy and totally pure.

In that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Romans 6:10

Again, that’s talking about Jesus. Most people would agree with that. But look at what the next verse says:

Likewise [in the same manner] reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:11

What a strong statement! You need to see yourself dead to sin the same way that Christ is dead to sin. Do you think that

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Jesus still has an old sin nature plus a new righteous nature on the inside of Him, and He’s struggling between the two? Of course not! Jesus is dead to sin. He’s no longer dealing with any propensity, sin nature, or actual sin drive. He took that into His own body and suffered for it. It’s dead, buried, and gone. We need to see ourselves just like Jesus—resurrected unto new life in God.

Let Not Sin Reign

Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.

1 Peter 4:1

Some people teach that this means, “The more you suffer, the more it’ll break the dominion of sin in your life.” That’s certainly not true. Some of the people who have suffered the most are some of the greatest sinners. This really means that Jesus—the One who suffered in the flesh by taking our sins into His own body on the cross and died for us—has ceased from sin. Sin has no more dominion over Him.

We need to arm ourselves by getting the same mind that Jesus now has toward sin. He’s not relating to sin. He doesn’t feel like a part of Himself is bound by nature to sin. He certainly knows better than that!

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So both 1 Peter 4:1 and Romans 6:11 tell us we need to have this same attitude as Christ toward sin. Here’s the result of this attitude:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Romans 6:12

“Let not.” This means that you do have the power to stop sin—the noun sin—from reigning in your life. The sin nature itself is dead and gone, but it’s up to you whether you let it continue to reign through the body—prior programming—it left behind. Don’t let the tendency you have toward sin because of an unrenewed mind reign in your mortal body. Since the Word commands you not to do this, this shows that you do have the power to deny sin the right to reign in your life.

“Not Under the Law…”

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unright-eousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Romans 6:13,14

The law was not given to break the dominion of sin, but to

give sin dominion over us. The law strengthened sin. (1 Cor.

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God did not strap Adam and Eve with a bunch of rules and regulations. He gave them freedom.
RENEW YOUR MIND

15:56.) The law made sin revive and come alive. (Rom. 7:9.) The law actually

empowered sin because sin was already present in the sin nature. People were deceived, thinking, If I’ll just quit living in the actions of sin, then I’ll be okay. Even if they could do that (which they couldn’t) and limited the number of sin actions they committed and somehow or another felt good about themselves, they still couldn’t change their sin nature. It was still there. It

might be a little bit dormant. It might be soothed over by all of these good works being done, but the truth is that we can’t change our nature just by acting good.

So the Lord had to bring us out of this deception. How did He do it? He started saying, “Thou shalt not…” Then, when we heard a commandment not to do something, we lusted for the very thing we were forbidden to do.

As a kid, how did you get somebody to do something they didn’t want to do? You’d just say real sarcastically, “You can’t do it. What are you, chicken? You sissy! I bet you can’t do it.” The moment you told someone they couldn’t do it, they’d break their neck trying.

Back in my running days, I was competing in a 6.2 mile race. When I was about a quarter of a mile from the finish line, this other runner started to pass me. I tried to keep up with him,

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but I was out of juice. I had turned in a personal record and just didn’t have anything left. This guy could tell I tried to keep up with him. He looked back over his shoulder and said very sarcastically, “You can do better than that!” Once he said that, it’s like I turned into the Incredible Hulk. My afterburners kicked in and I beat him in the last quarter mile of that race by 100 yards! I don’t know where that strength came from, but there’s just something about someone telling us we can’t do

something that makes us want to do it.

We didn’t produce our sin nature and we certainly can’t produce our new nature.

Most of us have probably experi-enced something similar to that. There’s just something inside us that goes off when we hear, “Thou shalt not…” and causes us to respond, “Bless God, I shall!” Something inside us just reacts because God didn’t create us to be domi-nated by rules and regulations.

God did not strap Adam and Eve with a bunch of rules and regulations. He gave them freedom. When the law came, its purpose wasn’t to break sin’s dominion over your life. Rather, it was to illustrate, “Hey, you’re hopelessly bound to this sin nature. You can’t change yourself just by improving a bit. You need help! And to prove it to you, I’m going to show you what’s in your heart. Thou shalt not commit adultery.” All of a sudden, sin revived and you began to lust for everything God told you not to do.

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While listening to me teach on this subject, a man decided to check this out for himself. In his backyard, his son and some friends had been playing well for over half an hour. So he walked up and told them, “Hey kids, you’re doing great. But whatever you do, thou shalt not spit on this flower!” Then he went back into his house and looked out the window. Half the kids went right over and spit on that flower. The others just stood there with their mouths open and drooling—wishing they had enough nerve to spit on the flower. They immediately lusted for the thing they were commanded not to have.

“…But Under Grace”

That’s what the law did. It actually gave sin—this sin nature—dominion over us. It made sin—the noun sin—come alive and begin to lust for everything we were told we couldn’t have. The purpose was to bring us out of our decep-tion and recognize that even though we might have overcome individual acts of sin, that sin nature was still there. We were by nature children of the devil and the only way out of it was to receive a brand-new nature. And that’s something we can’t produce. We didn’t produce our sin nature and we certainly can’t produce our new nature. We must receive it as a gift from God.

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Grace now reigns!

So in Romans 6:14, Paul said that this old sin nature “shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”