Think like a Christian

We aren’t going to act like Christians until we first think like Christians. Today, R.C. Sproul explains that a transformed life begins with a transformed mind.

When you walk like a duck and quack like a duck, chances are you’re a duck. When you’re unconverted, you think like an unconverted person and you act like an unconverted person. The Old Testament tells us that as a man thinks in his heart—that is at the core of his being, not just the superficial thoughts that may go across his brainwaves for a second, but that which he thinks about deeply, that which takes a hold of him and grabs him at the core of his being—as a man thinketh there in his heart, so is he.

So, if we want to be transformed, and that’s what Paul is talking about at the end of his great letter on redemption in the book of Romans, he says, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be transformed.” Right? “Present yourselves as living sacrifices unto God, which is your acceptable worship,” and so on, and then he says, “Be transformed, not conformed to this world.”

An unconverted person is conformed to the patterns and the way of thinking of a fallen world. But a Christian who is converted is called to transformation, to be transformed people, changed lives. The question is how does that happen? What Paul teaches us there is the way you’re transformed in your life is to be first of all transformed in your mind. It’s by gaining the mind of Christ, to begin to understand things the way Christ looks at them, to love the things that Christ loves, to hate the things that Christ hates.

You’re not going to act like a Christian until you think like a Christian. There are plenty of people who think like Christians but don’t really act like Christians, because the thought never gets down into the bloodstream. But if we really want to be different, if we want to be conformed to the image of Christ, we have to be trained by the Word of God. The Word of God has to take a hold of us and grab us in the heart. That’s what this is about. This isn’t just about education or tickling our intellectual interests and fascinations. This is about redemption.