Renew Your Mind in 30 Days

by Phil Drysdale

We often create our own self-fulfilling prophecies by what we choose to believe about ourselves, our circumstances, other people and even God.

“If you believe you are a sinner, then you will sin by faith”

We are no longer fighting against what God is saying but rather we are resting in what He says to be the truth.

This isn’t just an example of how big a problem our beliefs can be. It is also an example of how big a solution our beliefs can be.

So, repentance is not about changing your actions nor is it feeling bad about your sins, it is simply changing what you believe, changing your mind. Feeling bad about sin and changing the way you live are not bad things, but they are not the focus of Christian living, they are the fruit of Christian living. The focus of Christian living is what we believe. What we believe shapes our whole lives. Romans 12:2 states that we “are transformed by the renewal of our mind.” This sums up repentance beautifully.

We are not becoming saints or becoming righteous, we are saints and are we righteous. Our journey is merely a journey of discovery, as we discover who we are and choose to believe it, we start to walk in it.

Repentance is the process of discovering what God says is the truth and aligning your faith with His.

the goal of this book is not an amassing of information. What we are after here is a restructuring of your beliefs to help bring actual transformation to your life,

“When considering sin it’s a great idea to remember that Adam & Eve hid from God, not God from Adam & Eve.”

“God cannot look upon sin”. Did you know that this is completely unbiblical? Not only that, it is absolutely ridiculous.

Habakkuk is not stating doctrine here, he’s throwing a temper tantrum because he thinks that God is too holy to look upon sinners and yet despite what Habakkuk believes, God is quite happy to look upon sinners.

We have such a jaded view of God. He’s so much bigger than our sin and sin is a big

fat nothing in the face of who He is. He is so much bigger than sin and has fully dealt with...

Remember when Adam and Eve sinned and God ran away from them because He couldn’t look upon sin? No, of course not, because that didn’t happen. Instead Adam and Eve chose to hide from God because of their sin, but God came down and restored relationship wit...

Of course there were consequences of sin, sin always leads to death, not as a punishment but as a consequence! However, separation from God is not a consequence of sin, it’s a consequence of bad doctrine… and if you think like that you might just delude yourself into experiencing it!

while grace has been given in full it can only be accessed through faith (Rom 4:16, 5:2, Eph 2:8).

“What we call ‘revival’, the New Testament calls ‘Christianity’ – Waiting for ‘revival’ is an excuse to be powerless today.”

the Spirit doesn’t fall and then leave and then fall again. Once the Spirit was poured out it was poured out.

We are hoping that one day God moves and people get saved, healed and delivered and that our cities would be transformed. The problem is that those things didn’t happen without man in the scriptures. They always happened when man, full of the Spirit of God, decided to move.

Your circumstances don’t influence God’s goodness but if you allow them, they can influence your ability to see God’s goodness.

surprise me with your goodness!

“To have peace that transcends understanding you are going to have to let go of your need to understand everything!”

The truth of the matter was that I don’t see everything and I don’t understand everything. So if I require understanding in everything to find peace, I will never be able to find it.

actually has nothing to do with us at all! It’s the Spirit’s fruit, not yours or mine! So we aren’t even called to grow in our patience, but rather grow in our ability to let the Spirit produce patience in us. We are called to abide in Him.

This burden was lifted when God revealed to me that I was living in a lie. The basis of my relationship has never been my actions but always how much I believed He loved me.

determine whether or not you enjoy relationship with God, is to either believe that God loves you or not.

you were the initiator of this relationship and my only participation is to receive your love and, in natural overflow, to respond in love however I feel led.

When we look at things, we have to look at them through the lens of God’s nature as a good Father and His ability as an almighty God. When we do this, it shouldn’t be too surprising that we have very little left to be negative about.

Now reflect on how God is feeling about that situation. Is He full of dread? Concerned that it might be too hard a situation to turn around for good? Maybe He has just lost all hope in His ability to be a good Father in this situation. List the thoughts and feelings God has about this situation.

things are not as bad as they seem because you have a great plan!

“Rest is not lack of action but the presence of an attitude.”

Life is not about working on our actions, it’s about working on our beliefs.

we are transformed by the renewal of our minds, not by the renewal of our actions!

you find yourself working hard and stressed and strained, you aren’t at rest and you have taken God’s job of producing fruit upon your own shoulders. Try to rest, relax and focus on His voice, what He is saying, and let Him produce much fruit in your life today.

what beliefs have you embraced which have transferred the work from Christ back upon your own shoulders?

you have only given me one responsibility: to listen to your voice and believe, to embrace that gift of faith which comes from hearing.

“Knowledge is knowing the truth. Wisdom is knowing how to apply it.”

“Knowledge is knowing the tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad.”

Do we want to just apply our wisdom to the knowledge we have? Or would we rather apply God’s wisdom to our knowledge? Having the wisdom of God is a game changer. To know exactly how to operate in every situation and every relationship will turn your world upside down.

“Religion is what happens when you love an ideal more than you love people.”

In a proud attempt to become righteous before God, we elevate the rules above people.

Help me to see the people you’ve put in my life to be loved today, and to throw out every “good reason” I have not to put love first.

“Grace doesn’t ignore sin… Grace destroys sin!” Phil Drysdale

We have spent so many years growing up in a morality club, so focused on our conduct, that we have trained ourselves to focus on what is wrong so we can whittle it out.

The only sin that grows in a believer’s life is that which comes as fruit of believing a lie. Ultimately, in believing that they are not righteous in Christ.

The truth is that the sinful identity we had in Adam was put to death on the cross in Christ and we were raised up in a glorious righteous identity in Christ. Sinning to a believing believer is as attractive as eating dirt

We sin because we still focus on our conduct rather than our beliefs.

Consider the truth that sin’s strength is in the law. What rules or regulations are you applying to your life to try and stop yourself sinning?

How has dealing with the fruit worked out for you? Do you still need the rules or have you been completely set free?

Ask God what the actual problem is. What is the root problem of that sin? What are the beliefs you need to change today?