Tis the season for making resolutions, setting goals, and pausing to reflect on what a new year and a new decade may hold. But before you begin plotting your new exercise routine or swearing off sugar, allow me to recommend one resolution that should be at the very top of your list: Renewing your mind.
Now I understand how this could sound a little vague. You’re probably more used to writing goals like: lose twenty pounds, eat healthier, or start lifting weights. But in this season where everyone tends to focus on physical changes, I wonder if we shouldn’t step back and focus on changing the way God instructs us to.
In Romans 12:1-2, Paul writes the following:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform 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.
Paul tells us that if we want to change our bodies—make them holy and pleasing to God as a living sacrifice—we must renew our minds. We need transformation, but it’s not the physical transformation we often assume we need. It’s a spiritual one.
See, the truth is, physical transformation that takes place without spiritual transformation doesn’t last. You can’t redeem the world through changing behaviors or changing policy alone, you must change hearts.
And that’s why it’s our resolution, every year, here at Care Net to not just pray for change in what the law says about abortion, but to transform hearts and minds with the Gospel until abortion is unthinkable.
To do this, we must start with transforming our own minds.
Instead of an “us versus them” mentality, what does it look like to love those with whom we vehemently disagree? Yes, we stand our ground. Yes, we share the truth. But, as 1 Corinthians 13, admonishes, unless we have love—we’re just a clanging symbol.
What if 2020 was the year, the decade, where those who seek abortions felt so much love from those who oppose abortion, that they couldn’t help but wonder where this love came from? What if this was the year, the decade, where we were known not by our politics, but by the way we genuinely loved each other and loved the women and men facing difficult pregnancy decisions?
It starts with you and it starts with me. The only minds we can renew are our own. But whether you long to drop a few pounds, run a marathon, start a pregnancy center, or see abortion outlawed in your state, we have the greatest impact when we start with transforming our mind. Only then can we see and discern God’s will. And, only then, through making our bodies a living sacrifice, can we truly experience abundant life.
Will you join me in making this one of your 2020 resolutions?