"Life's Healing Choices" in American Sign LanguageSample

If You Want to Change, Change Your Thinking
By Rick Warren

“Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.” (Ephesians 4:23 NLT, second edition)

Change requires new thinking. In order to change, we must learn the truth and start making good choices, but we also must change how we think.

How you think determines how you feel, and how you feel determines how you act. If you want to change how you act, you start by changing how you think. In addition, if you want to change how you feel, you must start with how you think.

For instance, you can say, “I need to love my husband more,” but that isn't going to work. You can't fight your way into a feeling. You must change the way you think about your husband, about your kids, about your wife. That will change how you feel, which will then change how you act. The Bible says, “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes” (Ephesians 4:23 NLT, second edition).

The battle for sin, the battle to deal with those defects in your life that you don't like, starts in your mind. If you want to change anything in your behavior or anything in your emotions, you start with your thoughts and your attitude.

The renewal of your mind is related to the word "repentance." I know repentance is a dirty word for a lot of people. They think it means something bad, something they don't really want to do, something painful. They think of a guy standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “Repent! The world's about to end!"

Repentance has nothing to do with your behavior. It is about changing your mind and learning to think differently. “Repent” simply means to make a mental U-turn.

You turn from guilt to forgiveness. You turn from frustration to freedom, from darkness to light, from hatred and bitterness to love.

You may also need to change the way you think about God. He's not mad at you; he’s mad about you! You’re deeply flawed, but you’re deeply loved.

Start with your mind, and change how you think about your relationships, the economy, the world, and your past, present, and future. Changing the way you think will then affect your emotions and your behavior.

Talk It Over

Where can you get the power to make changes you don’t think you can make alone?

Why do you think repentance is required for the renewal of your mind?

How do you change how you think about your most important relationships?