THREE DEDICATIONS FOR DISCERNING GOD’S DIRECTION Romans 12:1-2 Dedications: to set apart for sacred use. Discerning: to come to know or to recognize. Direction: authoritative instruction and guidance.

II. Dedicate our MINDS to God TRANSFORMATION …but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…

Transformed: a CHANGE in form; a metamorphosis Renewing: to revive or reawaken

A. Renewing our mind is a process of giving our THOUGHT LIFE over to God. • Proverbs 23:7a For as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he. • Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. • Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. B. When God sees our sinful thought lives, it GRIEVES Him. • Genesis 6:5-6 God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth.

C. Because of SIN we are often DECEIVED into believing our thoughts are pure. • Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

D. Ask God to show us our true THOUGHTS and INTENTS of our minds. • Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

E. The Word of God is able to REVEAL our true thoughts and intents. • Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

F. RETURNING to the Lord is the cure for improper thoughts. This is a continual process. • Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

G. COMMITTING our lives to the Lord will change our thought life. • Proverbs 16:2-3 All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits. Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.