Mind

Mind

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Romans 12:2

Many years ago a famous plastic surgeon, Dr. Maxwell Maltz, wrote a best-selling book, New Faces—New Futures. It was a collection of case histories of people for whom facial plastic surgery had opened the door to a new life. The author’s theme was that amazing personality changes can take place when a person’s face is changed.

As the years went by, however, Dr. Maltz began to learn something else, not from his successes but from his failures. He began to observe patient after patient whose personality, even after facial plastic surgery, did not change. People who were now beautiful kept on acting the part of the ugly duckling. They acquired new faces but went on wearing the same old personalities.

“In 1960, Dr. Maltz wrote another best-seller, Psycho-Cybernetics. He was still trying to change people, not by correcting jutting jawbones or smoothing out scars, but by helping them change the pictures they had of themselves.”^a

A plastic surgeon can change the nature, form, or function of our nose, ears, or jaw, but only God can transform our minds. The English word transform is based on the word metamorphosis, meaning change from within. As we spend time in God’s Word, his Holy Spirit changes us from within, giving us eternal perspective and a sense of great worth, meaning, and significance. As Warren Wiersbe says, “If the world controls your thinking, you are a conformer; if God controls your thinking, you are a transformer.”^b

Father,

Thank you for your Word. May we choose to spend great amounts of time in it so that with the help of your Spirit our minds will be transformed from the inside out. Amen.