If your walk of faith consists of hearing God’s Word taught on Sunday then trying to just do it through the week, you are probably sensing frustration in your desire to become like Christ because you have set yourself up for failure. Applying God’s Word does not happen by just trying to do it.
Here is the key: an attempt at changing your behavior without changing the way you think is an exercise in futility. This is why we are instructed to be renewed in the spirit of our minds (Ephesians 4:23). It is your mind that must be changed first. Only then will your behavior genuinely reflect the character of Jesus. That is living in the outflow as a branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine (John 15:4-5). Without this, one’s walk of faith is merely external conformity. That makes faith a drudgery, and we were not called to a grinding walk of faith because Jesus said His truth will set you free – His yoke is easy, His burden is light. John said “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
Consider the refreshing, liberating contrast of Psalm 1 – How blessed (happy!) is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night. Notice the nuance of endless resource and renewal when the Psalmist writes, “he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.”
One of the shackles of a biblically untrained heart and mind is servitude to popular opinion – “the counsel of the wicked, …the way of sinners, …the seat of scoffers.” The fear of man is oppressive. But being transformed by the renewing of your mind comes from choosing to set your mind on God’s Self-disclosure. Howard Hendricks asserts, “There’s nothing like the self-assurance that comes from firsthand knowledge of the Bible. It gives you confidence to think for yourself. Most people don’t think – they merely rearrange their prejudices. But it’s altogether different when you know what the Bible says...that kind of personal ownership of spiritual truth cuts you free from the leash of popular opinion.”
There is a unique power that you posses as one who bears God’s image – it is power to choose what occupies your mind. What occupies your mind is your master, and if it is not the benevolent Sovereign, then you are oppressed by some level of tyranny. The freedom for which you were created is enjoyed only under the authority of Christ, and the only way you come under that authority and stay under it is by surrendered trust in what God has made known in His word. The path to true personal freedom under God is acknowledgment of the Bible’s authority over your life and it’s sufficiency for all things concerning life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).
J.I. Packer said it best, “The more completely heart and mind are controlled by Scripture, the fuller our freedom and the greater our joy.” You were designed to experience a settled satisfaction in God’s goodness.
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You.”
~Isaiah 26:3
Copyright © 2026 Grace Bible Church, All rights reserved.