Episode #38 – Change Your Mind, Transform Your Life

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another podcast. My name is Glennavelle Manarang, to those of you who are here for the first time, I would like to welcome you. I will try to talk as slow as I can because the last time I think my last podcast was a little force and fast. Because I was trying to do things and get it over with apparently. Perhaps, some people might say she talks too fast. We cannot really catch up. So today is about change your mind, transform your life. The Bible talks about transformation in the mind. Romans 12:2 it says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It is called repentance. The word repent is from a Greek word metanoia. Meta is change of your mind, change of will. So when you think about it, it all comes down to your mindset. But how do you really change your mindset? How do you change your will? Is it because you are trying so hard to muzzle it? And what does it take to have a different kinds of mindset?

Perhaps there is some kind of verses that I have found that is going to give you some contradictions or what does it look like versus the inner man, the old man and the new man. When you change your mind is because you are now awakened or some people might call it enlightened or have they have finally realized that they’ve been thinking the wrong thoughts. They have been conforming to the lies, the patterns, the cycles of the world, their belief system. And so it says in Colossians 3, it says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” So what are the things above and the things on the earth?” For we died to Christ. So he went on to say in verse 5 to put to death your members which are on the earth. So the earth is your old self. So we do have some kind of duality in us. The inner man, the old version from Adam and Eve.

These are our old version, which is the un-awakened, the person that is still part of your old self, which are fornication, uncleanness, passions, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, and which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. So the moment you become a born again Christian. You have realized that you’ve been sinning, that you have been acting against the will of God, you are now going to walk with a new life, a new pattern of life. So I said repentance is a change of mind, change of will. When you wake up from the reality that you have been living in sin, you are now going to have the new man. What does the new man looks like?

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, you need to put on mercies, tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. So, there is a distinction between your old carnal self and the new nature. and also went on to say that in Colossians 3:14 it says and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. So what Jesus said, “I and the father are one.” You need to integrate yourself with Jesus in order for you to have the different kind of mindset. You can go to your route and says you can think positively on your own. You can just do things on your own and you can just think for yourself positive thoughts on your own.

However, Jesus made it clear that I am the way, the truth, and the life. Apart from me, you cannot integrate yourself with the father without Jesus Christ. I mean, you can do it that route, but a blind man is a blind man. He will never know the difference between him sinning and what is righteous versus wickedness. Because how does a blind man knows that he’s blind? Unless of course he have seen with his eyes and he can see colors for the first time. Then he can realize that actually I’ve been living in blindness. And now that God had opened my eyes, now I can see the difference between religiosity and spirituality. So when we talk about the inner man, it’s about the condition of your old self, our nature as sinner as we were born in sin the moment we were conceived into this world.

And what C.S. Lewis used to say in his book mere Christianity says human beings judge one another by their external actions. However, God judges them by their moral choices. So the difference between the old self which is you have not repented, you have not changed your mind is that you are living under the doctrine of this world, under the principalities of this world, the darkness you we have been alienated from the doctrines of God. God has given us his son. The word became flesh. The word Jesus Christ became flesh and he dwelt among us so that we can integrate our old self into the newness of being a Christian to be given a new identity. We have been adopted now into this realm of heaven and holiness and righteousness.

Before that you were just acting like the world as I said what does the world offer but look around you the world offers nothing but this world would say it’s about indulgences it’s evil passions it’s selfishness it’s about your own pride the names that are mentioned here as I said I’m going to say it again uh do not lie to one another lying and then of course it says that a new man must be renewed in knowledge So the knowledge that you are created in the image of God, if you do not know that you’re created in the image of God, you are disconnected from your creator. This is why some people cannot potentially live according to the will of God or act according to the will of God because they refuse to repent. Remember the story of the prodigal son. He is the perfect illustration of what a repented heart looks like.

The prodigal son decided to ask his dad to venture into the world. Ask a part of his inheritance to say I will live my life however I want to live. Give me the part of my portion. I want to be able to go to the world and live like the heathens. And so the father gave him the freedom, gave him the choice. The same thing with God. He cannot force you to change your mindset. He cannot force you to change your will. It is your free will. It is the freedom. It is the automata. It is the choice that God has given. Is the gift from God. And that’s the illustration that the father had given the portion of it of his inheritance to his second child out of love out not out of spite. So that the child his son would realize that the world really has nothing to offer. The world offers because he realized and he came to his senses that he ran out of money.

He encountered problems which are famine and he ended up eating with a bunch of hogs. Hogs is the filthiness of what illustration I think when we think about it when the prodigal son came with nothing. Nobody really helped him. The world didn’t even help him or pity him, but he ended up eating with a hugs pen which illustrates the filthiness of the world. And when he dusted off his feet and he came to his senses, he said, “What am I doing here? My father who owns a lot of things, he has a servant. And here I am dining with a bunch of swine. I must go back to my father and ask for forgiveness.” That is what you call repentance. He decided that he has been alienated. He has been separated from his dad, from his father, because of his disobedience, because of his rebellious actions that he dusted off his feet. And he returned home and he asked for forgiveness. And he humbled himself and asked his dad to take me back again, not as your son, but as one of your servants.

Repentance also requires for your humility. It requires for you to ask God’s forgiveness to really examine your heart of where it is that you need to change. As I said, many people live life going through the motions. They live up to 70s and 80s not realizing that their mindset, that their lifestyle have been crooked, that has not been aligned with the purpose and with the instructions of God and therefore they think they’re actually free of sin and they have been living this way. And you have seen this with many people. You would wonder to yourself just because you look like you’re in your 70s or 60s even you think they’re mature in the head. But you’ll be surprised that many people have not yet matured in the head. I do not understand why people says wisdoms comes with age when actually not a lot of people are aging that that are wise because the Bible is clear. The only difference between the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.

The Bible is clear that the beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord. You cannot be wise when you have no fear in God. You need to be able to integrate the spirit of God in order for you to be wise. And that’s the only reason why for you to grow up in the head. And there’s so many also it it talks so much about the fixing your thoughts in Philippians 4:8 that Paul wrote to the Philippi that says brethren finally you have to be able to fix your thoughts. Your change of mind is also fixating your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable to think things are excellent and worthy of praise. It is replacing whatever patterns and negative thoughts that you’ve been thinking. I know it takes a lot of work. As I said, positive thinking was written by I think Norman. I forgot his name. I think Norman something. I’ll try to link the book on on the description list. I have read that many years ago. He talks about the power of positive thinking. We cannot really shut down the noises of our thoughts.

Our thoughts come and go. We cannot control them. Research have shown that we we produce about 70,000 thoughts per day. Apparently, we cannot shut them all down, but we can choose to replace uh negative thoughts into positive. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of discipline and awareness. You cannot really have a kind of mindset without being aware of what you’re thinking about. Think about what you’re thinking about. What are the thoughts that you’ve been controlling in your mind? You you need to be able to interrogate your thoughts. Where is the underlying thoughts come from? If you have been feeling insecure or feeling unloved, where did this come from? Am I feeling unworthy? Because perhaps some people in your life told you that you’re ugly. And it becomes a subconscious part of your brain. It is becoming the makeup of your DNA.

Now your belief that just because somebody told you you’re unworthy, unloved, therefore it’s true. when in fact what the Bible is saying is that it’s not really true because God says I have fearfully and you are fearfully and wonderfully made and you’re created in the image of God. The fact that you’re created in the image of God means to say that you are intrinsically valuable. You have value in the eyes of God. Therefore, you must act like one. And so when Jesus said that the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks is because that is exactly what you’ve been contemplating about. The thoughts that you produce is because it has been your DNA. It’s been a makeup of you. It has been something that’s been entrenched in your psyche that you need to re-shift your whole mindset. That’s why the moment you speak out of your mouth, I said pay attention to what you say. That’s exactly what you’ve been thinking about about that person.

The words that are coming out of your mouth are the ones that you have been contemplating about a subject about a human being. If you’re not careful, if you don’t guard your heart, all of the issues come out of your life. So the thoughts in our hearts are actually interconnected. They’re not separated from each other. This is why you must be able to understand that your inner man, which is when you talk about the inner man, it talks about not just a physical heart that’s pumping blood. It is actually yourself. It is the old self. We are of twin flames in you. Two kinds of people. As I said, we are living in duality. Some one person is positive and the other one is negative. Perhaps some people might agree or argue that think about Cain and Abel. They’re twin brothers and they illustrate duality. Cain was an evil one. He murdered his own brother because of his jealousy, because of his bitterness.

When God asked him to deal with your sin because it’s lurking, that’s what happened. When we do not take care of our own thoughts, when we do not examine our own hearts, it can make it will make us a murderous, hateful, bitter person, which is that is the inner man, the Eve and the Adam fruit, which is rebellious, disobedient. And Abel was the person that God loved. and he was well pleased with a sacrifice of Abel because Abel was a man who gave a good offering to God that was honorable in the eyes of God. So there’s a duality. There’s a twin that was living uh in this world many years ago. And if you think about it, our life is the same way. We are living in contrast. We’re not always positive. We’re not always negative. We’re not always happy. We’re not always sad.

So this is why we need to be able to subdue the flesh and be able to really tell ourselves that the bigger version which is the higher self if you want to call it the enlightened one. I cannot think of any other name but that jargon is probably coincide with new age teaching but it’s is not really something that is not biblical. It probably is an overlapping teaching that when you talk about higher self it’s about stepping into your spirit. When Galatians 5:22 says, you know, walk in the spirit, the fruit of the spirit is evident, which are love, peace, joy, longsuffering, goodness, you will know that you are growing. You will know the evidence of your life that you have changed your mindset. You have changed your will when you are walking in the spirit.

That’s why Jesus said, “You cannot bear fruit apart from me.” the fruit of the spirit which is going to reveal in your life due to the fact that you have been attaching yourself with the vine because you are the branches. You cannot really produce the fruit of goodness unless you are going to attach yourself with the vine. You cannot bear good fruit unless you have attached yourself with the godhead and recognizing that you do need the father, the son, and the holy spirit to help you to uncover any darkness that is laying dormant in your heart. That’s why David used to pray, “Examine my heart, oh God, and know my thoughts. Search me, oh God, and see if there’s any anxieties in me. Are there any sin, unconfessed sin? sins that I have not really confessed to you, sins that I’ve been hiding from you.

That’s important because some people might have a false idea in their head that just because I do the right things as what C.S. Lewis says, God can see the heart, the moral compass of your heart, he knows exactly what is hidden behind the person. Man look at the outside appearance. Man judges us based on our actions, but it doesn’t mean that our heart is pure. It doesn’t mean that our conscience is clear. It doesn’t mean that we’re doing the right thing and our motives are right. We can fool people by actions based on falsehood and bogus, but God can see your heart. And that is why the distinction between the clear conscience and also when it comes to repentance changing of your mind is that according to RC Sproul one of his teaching he says your conscience is actually not the final authority because your conscience can be compromised.

Many people’s consciences have been compromised because they have tuned out their conscience for a longest time. They have sabotaged their consciousness by saying, “I don’t want to listen to you anymore.” They have seared them. They become desensitized. The fact that when their conscience says, “Stop lying. Don’t do that because it’s wrong.” And you keep not listening to that conscience. You have tuned it out. You have drowned out the noise of your own conscience. Over time, you will not know the difference between lying and the truth anymore because you’re so good at lying. And it becomes a second nature to you. And that’s why people that are not repented, they don’t they don’t repent. They don’t change their mindset. They’re not re they don’t realize that their choices and their behavior are affecting themselves and other people.

So they keep doing it over and over again. And when you are have seared your conscience, you’re no longer feeling sorry for doing things that are wrong. You don’t no longer feel sympathy or feel bad because why? It becomes your second nature that now you have seared your conscience. The knowing conscience is with the knowledge, the knowing that you actually have done wrong. But because you’re in denial, as Jesus liked to point out, you are the sons and the daughters of your father in this life. Satan, the father of all the father of all lies. He is the accuser from the beginning. He is the murderer from the beginning. And when people can see the difference between the righteousness of God, the change of the mind is that you will not going to lie. That’s why Colossians says, “Do not lie to one another.” Do not lie to one another since you have been put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him.

So when you are not integrated with the creation with a creator you are going to your proclivity is to lie because you are living with the old man with your old deeds which means you have not yet awakened. You have not yet tapped into the will of the father. The will of the father of course is for you to live righteously and not to live in this dark world who loves to lie. And there’s a lot of contrast when you talk about it in the Bible. That’s always the difference between the fruit of the spirit and the fleshly mind. The flesh mind which cannot please God. The flesh is the flesh which is again it is something of our old nature. It is something of Adam and Eve. It is something that Jesus said unless the man is born again no one can enter the father. Which means to say you need to be transformed. You need to be changed and integrated into this new version of yourself.

As I said, it is the Holy Spirit’s work to change you. And in 1 Thessalonians, it says that therefore let us not sleep as other do. But let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith, love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. That’s what I’m saying. The people that are asleep, they don’t know any better. They are their eyes are not open that they have done something wrong. But to those of us who have been awakened, he said that you must be sober putting on the breastplate of faith, love, and as a helmet of hope for salvation. Because there’s a big distinction between people who are asleep. They are not awakened in their consciousness. They’re not awakened in their mindset because they have not yet repented of their sins.

So, the Bible is not just about spirituality but it’s about practicality. If you think that the Bible is all about spiritual casting out the demons when we think about it the demon, the devil himself or Lucifer or Satan whoever you want to call him or the beast lives inside to all of us. We our own worst enemy. The enemy is really reciting in our hearts. That’s what that’s why C.S. Lewis said in his mere Christianity that says our pride is our emnity is against God and man and against man and man and within ourselves. So, when we talk about our own blindness and our own foolishness, we’re actually alienated. We become blinded because of our own dark darkened mindset. In the moment we have taken off the scales out of our eyes. We have opened our eyes to the truth that actually we have been living against God’s will.

We have been living contrary to what God asked us to do. Remember what happened to Paul when he went to uh Damascus. He was soul first of all and Jesus was able to blind him for three days and he opened his eyes. There was a scales that were coming off of his eyes and he was able to opened his eyes to the truth that Paul was actually hating Jesus Christ. And remember what happened to Saul to the way to Damascus. Jesus asked him, Saul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Why do you hate me so much? And so Saul recognizes and asked the question, who are you, Lord? And so Saul had enlightened moment. He had was able to be able that moment to open his eyes that Jesus actually was inviting him to open his eyes to his truth. The son of God who made a way when there seems to be no way. The man who knew no sin who became sin and that’s the moment that soul’s life were transformed and he became Paul because God had changed his identity and that is the revelation that when we become a new version God will change your heart.

He gives you a new heart, a new spirit and a new identity. Sometimes you look at the bible, God will change their name into something different. Abram and he was changed to Abraham from Saul who became Paul Jacob that later on got him a new name Israel because he wrestled with God. And God said, I will give you a new name because you saw my face and you were not dead because he wrestled with God that Jacob was wrestling with God and God said to him let me go and Jacob said I will not let you go unless you will bless me. So, sometimes we have to wrestle with our old self, with a new self to integrate it. And when God was pleased because Jacob was unwilling to let go of that blessing, God said, “I will give you a new name. Your name will no longer be Jacob. It will no longer be the old version of you that was a usurper, the one who stole from your brother’s birthright.”

Jacob, who was actually a conniver, he was actually part of his mom’s scheming that he stole his brother, Esau’s birthright. and his mother and him colluded with another to go against his brother Esau. And God said, “Okay, I’ll give you a new name which is Israel.” He was now the new man transformed because he has encountered the face of God. He encountered the one, the creator that actually created him and he is no longer the same version of you. I’m pretty sure that if you have been walking with God, if you have been converted to Christianity, the true Christianity, okay, you will know the difference between your old self and the new self. As I said, I can always testify in my own life before and after. Before before I became a Christian, I went to church being religious on Sundays with my pretty little dress. However, I did not read my Bible. I don’t know anything about Christianity 101 because I did not grow up reading the Bible.

We did religious things like going to church, praying holy rosary, but those were just rituals. Those were just not spiritual until I read the Bible that fornicating like sleeping around and not getting married is actually a sin. Adultery is a sin, lying is a sin, lewdness, drunkenness or anything that is grandiose or extreme are actually a sin. until later on in college that I have encountered one of the people in my school when I was asking this question of who is this God. There was a time in my life where I was so confused of what life is all about. What is the true religion? Who is the right religion? I was having this aha moment when I was in college when I was lost cuz I thought to myself something is missing in my religion. I don’t know why I’m still depressed and sad and here I am going to church every Sunday. But apparently there’s still something is missing. I’m not sure what it is. I could not point out my own idea of what he was until one night I said, “If you really are real God, then reveal to me who your son is, Jesus Christ. I want to know who he is.”

And that’s exactly what I was introduced to Christianity later on in life when I was in my late 20s. And I started going to Barnes & Nobles and purchased my first Bible when I was 27. So, I was really late in the game and I started reading the Bible. I got so obsessed that I spent most of my days reading my Bible from Genesis to Revelation and just skipping through the pages. I got so entrenched and get so hungered for something that I was trying to look. I was a woman trying to look for a treasure. And the moment I have read the Bible, that’s when I’ve opened my eyes to the truth that there is something more than just religion. There’s something more than just going to church and doing the right things. But actually, it’s about your lifestyle.

Because Christianity is not only you put on Sundays and you take it off Mondays through Saturdays. It’s actually your lifestyle. It’s your being. It’s who you are without people looking or with people looking at you. It’s behind closed doors and outside. you are just that person. People mistakenly just because they go to church and they do the Holy Rosary that they’re going to heaven when in fact they don’t really understand what Holy Rosary is. Now that I’m a Christian, I’m trying to go back to saying the Holy Rosary. It’s actually a meditation and it is a recollection of what Jesus did on the cross. Perhaps some people can argue that rosary is not biblical or is actually not a Christian thing. It’s really something to do with recollecting. When we when we talk about the sorrowful mystery or the glorious mystery or the joyful mystery, now they’ve added luminous mystery. It is actually recollecting us to contemplate of what Jesus did on the cross or what he did after the death and then his resurrection. So you must be able to change your mind to have a transformed life.