Lasting change requires new thinking. The battle for change is won or lost in your mind! Ephesians 4:23 says, “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes” (NLT). Spiritual renewal takes place in your thoughts and in your attitudes—or, in other words, in your mind.

Here’s how it works: Feelings aren’t feelings in themselves. They are a response to a thought. It’s what you think that determines the way you feel. And what you feel determines the way you act.

If you want to stop a self-defeating behavior by changing the way you act, then you first must change the way you feel. But you can’t just change your feelings and tell yourself, “I’m just not going to feel that way anymore.” That doesn’t work. The only way you can change a feeling is indirectly—by going to the root of it, which is a thought.

In other words, you can change the way you act by changing the way you feel. And you can change the way you feel by changing the way you think.

There’s a biblical word for this process: repentance. The word “repentance” comes from a Greek word, metanoia. Meta means “to change,” and noia means “mind.” Repentance simply means you change your mind. That’s all there is to it!

You tell God that you want to go a different direction, and you ask him to help you choose to think about right and good things. If you change the way you think, it will change the way you feel, and the way you feel will change the way you act. It’s a reversal of your mindset—a mental U-turn.

The Bible says in Philippians 2:5, “Think the same way that Christ Jesus thought” (CEV).

What you think is a choice. And choosing is the beginning of changing. When you put on the mind of Christ and begin to think about the things he loves, then you will start to see your defects in a very different light.

Ask God to help you see him, others, and yourself the way he does, and you will start to see the changes he wants to make in your life.