Mental Formation

For a number of years I did not give much consideration to what might be called mental formation. But people kept asking “what about our minds? . . . Where do they fit into our formation?” To a certain extent, this dimension is active and involved in all the other areas. But this does not mean we should not focus on the capacity of our minds or our intellectual capabilities to how we are formed in Christ. Quite the contrary – we should actively be seeking ways that the renewing of our minds can contribute to our transformation.

Our mental or intellectual formation is primarily concerned with the mind. Therefore, the place we must start is to see how the mind is renewed in relation to God. The primary aspect of the renewal of the mind is the place of God in our minds. We must ask:  What kind of God is in our minds? When we put something else than God in our minds, we end up worshipping something else. To put it bluntly, until we get God right, we can’t possibly get our formation right. A key passage of Scripture for our mental formation is Romans 12:1-2:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

In the process of our formation, we need to come to the place where we don’t use any aspect of our bodies for our own purposes, but give them to God. How does this work? This process is led by transforming your mind. You start from the inside . . . with what occupies your mind. What people are like is what is in their minds. For most people, they are trying to manage their lives without God. Everyone has a “kingdom,” and people are busy trying to run their kingdoms. In Psalm 1, this is known as the “counsel of the ungodly.” 

Therefore, if you are going to be transformed, you have to look at a different place – God. So in mental formation, what needs to become more and more present in your mind is thoughts of God. You want to learn to live in such a way that God is always on your mind. The amazing reality is that you can do this and still do everything else required of you. You can drive safely, you can do your job, you can spend time with friends and family, and anything else that life requires. Living this way leads to what is important. When we think of other things, like what people think of us, we become animals of prey. We lose ourselves in all kinds of sensuality. When God goes out of the picture, we lose focus. Both our ideas and our feelings begin to get messed up.

The source of our life comes from our minds. Minds have ideas, images, belief, patterns of inference. In addition there are feelings that spin off in response to those ideas. What you think about, what occupies your mind, governs your feelings. You can begin to master your feelings if you change your ideas. For example, take sexuality. How I think about other people determines my feelings toward them. What we want is a view of the sanctity and goodness of another person, that it wouldn’t even come into our mind that we would subject them to our desires. Also how we think about God has ramifications here because God thinks about a person in a certain way. Therefore, how we think about others is determined by how we think about God, and how God thinks about other people. So if you want to stay out of temptation, the way to do that is to control where your mind is.

Two key passages that expand this concept are found in the apostle Paul’s letter to the
Ephesians. Ephesians 2:1-3 says:
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Ephesians 4:17-19 says:

So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,  being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

People walk in the “futility of their mind.” They become calloused – not able to feel what they need to feel. Paul is painting a really dark picture here, and it is reflected in the present day reality of how our society is so susceptible to addiction. What lies behind this is the need to feel, which is there because of emotional deadness. Sometimes there is pain. This picture is one where the mind has gone in the wrong direction, the feelings have followed, and have become deadened by repetition. Addiction is essentially progressive, because it is in the first place surrender to feeling. This is the condition of the mind when we start to renew it. This is the picture of the mind of the ordinary person.

One of the things that distinguishes evangelical religion is its insistence on the reality of sin. Sin primarily comes from turning the mind away from God to oneself. Sin is primarily preoccupation with the self –saying that I can run my life. What is the main move away from this condition? We change how we think about what God is. This can sound boring and dry. But it is absolutely crucial how we think about what God is like. This is the nature of ultimate reality: a community of great beings, of limitless power and knowledge, devoted entirely to the promotion of what is good, in creation and in redemption. Our mind is renewed as it turns away from image, thought and belief in reality as a cold, dark, crushing, soulless place in which there is ultimately no help. The most pathetic place of a human being is living in a place where there is no help. But we live in a universe where there is always help. To keep this God of goodness before our minds is the foundation of renewing our minds. Having this God always before our minds. In Psalm 16:8 David says: “I have set the Lord always before me.”

With the renewal of the mind toward God, a renewal of the mind toward human beings is closely tied. Apart from God, everyone has to look out for him or herself. Each one is the ultimate point of reference for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. This leads to use of the body for pleasure and power (see Romans 1). But when we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, it is natural and easy to love our neighbor as ourselves – but not otherwise. Renewal of our minds in these respects allows us to live in the service of others. The meaning of our life is to serve those around us. When the feeling side of the mind is changed, we find we can actually love others with God-like love. The renewing of the mind transforms you.

Efforts to become Christ-like by our own direct efforts will always fail if all you do is try to be like Jesus. Instead, you must put your efforts into forming the sources of life in the main dimensions of the self, such as the mind and the will. The question we need to ask is not how to change our behavior, but how to change our thinking? Where does temptation come from? Our thinking. Another way of looking at this – if you want to keep the law, don’t try to keep the law. Try to become the kind of person who naturally does what the law says. In order to do this, we need spiritual disciplines. And of all the spiritual disciplines, Scripture memorization is one of the best things you can do for the renewing of your mind. It is most helpful to memorize  whole passages of Scripture, not just verses. Also, memorize so that you have it as a resource permeating your whole being (cf. Joshua 1:8). Come to the place where you rejoice in the richness of the Scripture. This sets you free from all the legalisms around you. This was Jesus’ place of power when he confronted the temptations during his earthly journey.

For further reading, check out the Mental Formation section in the SOULeader Bookstore.

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