Sing a New Song with a Renewed Mind
Sing a New Song with a Renewed Mind.
“Let the upright sing for joy to the Lord; it is fitting for the pure to praise Him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre; make music for Him on the ten-stringed harp. Sing a new song of praise to Him; play skillfully on the harp, and sing with joy.” (Ps. 33:1-3).
“Sing a new song to the Lord! Let the whole earth sing to the Lord! Sing to the Lord, praise His name. Each day proclaims the good news that He saves. Publish His glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things He does. Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! (Ps. 96:1-4).
“Sing a new song to the Lord, for He has done wonderful deeds. His right hand has won a mighty victory. His holy arm has shown His saving power! The Lord has announced His victory and has revealed His righteousness to every nation! He has remembered His promise to love and be faithful to Israel. The ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.” (Ps. 98:1-3).
“I will sing a new song to you, O God! I will sing your praises with a ten-stringed harp.” (Ps. 144:9).
“Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song! Sing His praises in the assembly of the faithful. O Israel, rejoice in your Maker. O people of Jerusalem, exult in your King. Praise His name with dancing, accompanied by tambourine and harp. For the Lord delights in His people; He crowns the humble with victory. Let the faithful rejoice that He honors them. Let them sing for joy as they lie on their beds.” (Ps. 149:1-5).
“Sing a new song to the Lord! Sing His praises from the ends of the earth! Let the whole world glorify the Lord; let it sing His praise! (Isaiah 42:10, 12).
The Endless Quest, the Final Frontier. When it comes to singing a new song to the eternal and almighty Lord, there will always be fresh material for a new composition. Every believer is on the endless quest to discover as much about the character and goodness of God as He is willing to reveal. There is always more to the Lord than we can understand or appreciate, so there is always something new to discover about Him and more to sing about. There will always be new ways to express our praises to God.
“Who is able to understand the mind of Lord Yahweh? Who is able to be His teacher? We, however, have the mind of Christ!” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
“We have…” (Greek, “echomen”), which means ‘are having,’ ‘are keeping,’ or ‘are holding;’ to have and to keep on having, an action in progress; a process that is now taking place; the present state is a continuing state. So the literal translation is, “We, however, are having the mind of Christ.” Through the Holy Spirit, we now are new creatures who were given the capacity to learn how to think like Jesus.
… the mind of Christ.” (Greek for mind is “nous,” which means the highest knowing faculty of the soul, the spirit and understanding behind all we think and do). Through the Holy Spirit, then…
We are being given the capacity to think the thoughts of the Anointed One;
We have the growing ability to reason, to be logical, and to think things through like Jesus;
We are being infused with the ability to understand God’s wisdom;
We are being equipped with the moral intelligence of the Lord;
We are being given access to the reasoning behind the actions of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit;
We are in the process of perceiving spiritual matters as Christ perceives them;
We have an increasing ability to understand life from God’s perspective;
We will be continually inspired to develop the divine common sense and street-smart shrewdness that Jesus was known for;
We are gaining insight into what truly matters according to the thinking of God;
We have a growing ability to reflect and ponder according to the will of Christ;
We enjoy an ongoing co-mingling of our mind with Christ’s mind, until the end, when the new will have completely replaced the old, and those two minds will be indistinguishable.
“Be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind.” (Ephesians 4:23).
Renew – (Greek, “ananeousthai”), which means to be in the process of moving upward to a new reality; to move upwards to newness; to go to a higher stage, taking new strides; to come to new levels of spiritual understanding; the process of making our minds new with the mind of Christ; the renewal of the mind is akin to a resurrection of the mind; to renew the mind is essentially to take an old mind and recreate it into a new one.
Spirit – (Greek, “pneuma”), which can be translated in a few different ways. On the one hand, it is the word for spirit, Spirit, wind, breath; rooted in the word “pneo”, which means to set air in motion, to blow a breath, to produce a gust of wind; the pneuma is often associated with the blowing of the Holy Spirit into each of us, literally “inspiring” us; the above verse could mean the Holy Spirit blowing His presence into our mind, inspiring us daily as our minds are recreated in Christ. On the other hand, pneuma has also been translated as attitude or disposition, the spirit in which we express our mind’s thoughts. The spirit of the mind is not what we think but how we think it, and how our inner thoughts are expressed outwardly as they are set in motion. Allowing the Spirit to renew not merely what we think, but the attitude with which we think it, the spirit in which those thoughts are expressed.
So we could understand our theme verse above in Ephesians 4:23 in various ways:
Renew the thinking of your mind by the Holy Spirit;
Allow the Spirit to make the attitude of your mind like brand new;
Allow the Spirit to recreate your mind with fresh new attitudes;
Take a fresh breath and allow your human spirit to be changed by the Holy Spirit;
Let yourself be inspired to develop new attitudes to your ways of thinking;
Allow yourself to be made new in the attitude of your understanding;
Be inspired each day to let the Spirit change for the better your attitudes and thoughts.
Daily Renewal. It appears that the daily renewal of our minds is not a passive experience for us, in which we just sit back and refuse to take any responsibility for what’s going on. We don’t have the supernatural power to renew our own minds, but we have been graced with the ability to use our God-given minds to grow in making good decisions. The best way to begin the process is deciding to simply open the door to our minds every day and allow God to enter in and engage in His renewal work. Yes, God does the heavy work, but we participate in this daily renewal by doing our part in the power of the Holy Spirit… Letting Him in; surrendering to Him; allowing the process of renewal to take place. The Lord is a consummate Gentleman, and he won’t force His way into our mind without our cooperation. It is up to us to open the door and welcome Him in.
“That is why we do not lose courage. Though our outer self is progressively wasting away and heading for decay, our inner self is being progressively renewed daily. So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.” (2 Corinthians 4:16, AMP and MSG).
Keeping our New Wits. A very enjoyable translation of this verse comes from the old Wycliffe version, which states, “We have the wit of Christ.” It’s great fun to consider that with the mind of Christ, we are destined to grow in our ability to be witty, to become as quick-witted as Jesus. Certainly, with His mind, we will grow in our ability to keep our wits, which are actually His wits, the more we depend on Him.
Transfusion. Acquiring the mind of Christ is like a spiritual version of a complete blood transfusion. Our old, unredeemed mind is infected with sin, full of deadly toxins. In order to survive, then, the old mind needs to be gradually and completely replaced by the cleansed mind of God. In medical terms, what is needed is a total blood transfusion, an “exchange transfusion” of blood. In spiritual terms, imagine the Holy Spirit engaging in the process of keeping each of us hooked up to His spiritual catheter, His invisible access to our mind, and then infusing the mind with the life-giving presence of God Himself. The Spirit of the Lord flowing into the spirit of our mind, while the old ways of thinking are taken away. The Adam-mind replaced by the Christ-mind. This spiritual transfusion happens gradually but surely as one follows Jesus and is connected through a personal relationship with Him to the power of His Spirit.
A Gift of Grace. As with any total blood transfusion, this spiritual process of acquiring the mind of Christ is a total gift from beginning to end. This process can only be provided by someone outside of oneself. Gaining the mind of Christ is a transfusion that in no way depends on one’s intellectual abilities, or natural brilliance, or personal resources. Only a qualified medical staff is able to perform a successful blood transfusion, and only the Spirit of God can conduct the spiritual transformation of one’s mind. Only the Spirit has the spiritual catheters that are up to the task of replacing the old infected mind with the new, perfectly clean mind. This process is a daily one, taking out the old and replacing with the new, that completely changes the way one thinks, decides and understands. Acquiring the mind of Christ is the process of receiving more of what one already has received in the Spirit. It is to possess more of what is already in our possession. When we finally meet God and embrace Him, we will completely understand what God has eternally understood. “For now I know partly, then I will know fully, just as God has fully known me.” (1 Cor. 13:12). In the New Kingdom, our minds will be fully transfused in Christ, and we will enjoy a true meeting of the minds with God.
Brain Matter. It doesn’t appear that the Spirit will actually rewire our brains, or add more neurons, or enlarge the brain muscle in some way. When we start following Jesus, our being a new creature doesn’t mean we have a new physical body, which would include the brain. Our brain is the physical organ that supports the more intangible functions of the mind, such as thinking, deciding, reasoning, even feeling. The mind consists of the rather abstract activities that are enabled by the more tangible aspects of the brain. So, in many ways, the physical brain controls the operations of the mind. But, being a new creature in Christ, now we have the wonderful prospect of God being able to control our brain any way He sees fit! The brain has a lot to say as to how we think, but Creator God has a lot say about how the brain functions. The tangible brain matter might control the intangible mind, but now the Lord has even more to say about how our mind operates. After all, God can heal any part of our body He wants to, including our brain. The Holy Spirit may not suddenly make someone intellectually brilliant, but we do know that, more importantly, He will enable us to develop true divine wisdom.
The Extent of the Miracle. And now consider what a profound and unfathomable miracle takes place as the Christian believer acquires the mind of Christ! The Holy Spirit enables us to access the very mind of the Almighty God, to actually know His thoughts? Ponder this supernatural gift along with St. Paul:
“O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His decisions, and His paths beyond finding out!
Who has understood the mind of Yahweh? Who knows enough to give Him advice?
Or, who has given Him so much that He needs to pay it back?
For everything was created by Him, everything lives through Him, and everything exists for Him;
So to Him must be given the glory forever! Amen! (Romans 11:33-36).