This year we as men at All of Life have made our guiding verse Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” 

Over the last six months we’ve spent time studying how to love the Lord with all your heart and then all your soul.  This month (July 2025) we kick off our third quarter with a focus on the mind.  

Inherently we’ve got a good understanding of our minds.  It’s how we meditate on scripture, how we memorize it, it’s our imagination, it’s what wanders when we’re idle.  

The mind isn’t a complicated concept to grasp, so how do we love God with our mind?

Romans 12:1-2 reads:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

In chapters 1-11, everything leading up to this passage, Paul has been preaching the gospel and here he makes a pivot into application: how does (and how should) the gospel change our day to day lives?

Paul’s opening call is to present our bodies, the whole of our person, to be a living sacrifice.  He makes this statement ‘by the mercies of God,’ by the power of the gospel as an act of worship.

Paul continues “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

He’s giving two options here.  We can either be conformed to this world, or we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  There is no third path offered; there is no staying the same.  

The natural state of the world is entropy, it is decay.  We all know this; physical things require maintenance, art forms (music, tv, movies) get worse over time, our relationships with each other will dissolve if they aren’t maintained … the world is constantly pulling us toward degradation.  We have to fight for renewal.  But there is good news: remember that Paul is making this call to us in light of the gospel!

“That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”

In these two verses Paul has done what we will attempt to do over the next few weeks: he’s given us a blueprint for how we love God with all of our mind:

By the power of the gospel, we renew our minds in Christ and His will is made known to us so that we can offer our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice

So what does transformation of the mind look like? How do we live it out?

If we take the two options Paul gives, the picture becomes clearer.

A mind conformed to the world allows us to do what feels good, it gives up control to the flesh. A mind being renewed discerns the will of God and does that.

A mind conformed to the world wanders to sinful thoughts.  It says things like “who is it hurting? It’s just in my head”.  A mind being renewed can instead direct our thoughts to God.  When your mind is idle, you begin to pray, to appreciate the creation around you and its creator, you meditate on truth and scripture you’ve memorized.  Your mind is fixed on God and takes every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5)

A mind conformed to the world allows doubt to take root.  Instead of investigating a thought or an argument for the truth, you accept the lie the world presents.  Instead, a mind being renewed counters doubts with knowledge and study.  When the world presents an argument, you seek the truth in scripture.  Not all of us will be skilled in apologetics, but you seek a knowledge of apologetic arguments.  Your faith isn’t rooted devoid of knowledge; don’t accept the lie that faith requires ignoring evidence.

The fruit of this transformation is knowledge of the living God; it’s the privilege of learning what is His Will, knowing what is good, acceptable, and perfect.

Finally, remember that Paul is writing to believers like us. This transformation is ongoing. Our minds aren’t instantly changed when we first declare that Jesus is Lord.  The words ‘by testing’ lets us know that this is going to require ongoing work.  Not work that leads to salvation, we are saved by grace alone, but work that leads to discernment that leads to us giving our bodies as a living sacrifice to God.

I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation with you at Mancamp. Don’t neglect to register!

—ALEX BARRETT