How to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life (Step by Step Guide)

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Learn how to renew your mind and what it means to be transformed by the renewing of your mind!

I’ve been in therapy for over two years now. I remember when I first started with my first therapist how frustrated I would get with her when she told me repeatedly that I needed to change my thoughts about a situation.

I was focusing on everything outside of me. “If this person would do this a certain way I wouldn’t feel this way.” “If this didn’t happen I wouldn’t be depressed. “When this changes, everything will be better for me.”

Instead of agreeing with me, my therapist would ask me what I needed. And what thoughts were going on in my mind that were leading me to these conclusions.

It took an embarrassing amount of time for me to understand how powerful my thoughts are. But when you have lived your life for so long believing every thought that comes into your mind-it’s a hard habit to break. It’s second nature and it takes time to change.

Once I finally understood the concept of questioning my thoughts it dawned on me that this is what God tells us to do in His word. But what God says to do is so much more powerful. He tells us to replace our thoughts with His word.

Make sure to grab the free renew your mind PDF worksheets at the bottom of this post!

Renew Your Mind Meaning

Renewing your mind means you capture negative and unhealthy thoughts and replace them with God’s word. Each thought should be filtered by two questions:

1. Is it true?

2. Does this align with God’s word?

If the answer to either of those questions is no, it’s time to replace them with God’s word.

Renewal of the Mind Bible Verses

Renewing your mind is a concept taken straight from God’s word.

There are 3 verses that tell us specifically to renew our minds and several more scriptures on renewing your mind that tell us the importance of our thoughts.

Here are the main Bible verses on renewing your mind:

Six Biblical Steps to Transform Your Mind

The renewal of your mind is a discipline that can change your life. Our thoughts control how we feel, how we act, and how we live our lives. The thoughts that we have can control who we are, or we can change our thoughts.

1. Recognize the Need to Renew Your Mind

Why do we need to renew our minds? Because we need to filter out the lies and only accept the truth. Our thoughts can give us peace, bring us closer to Christ or they can steer us towards depression and distance with our Creator.

There was an analogy I heard on the Life Coach School’s podcast that talked about death. In the best way that I can paraphrase she said that death only affects us in the way that we think about it.

When someone close to us dies, it makes us sad and brings about a wide range of emotions. Which is completely normal. However, we are only affected by the deaths of people we know or those we know about.

A person can die and we could never know about it and it has no effect on us. But when someone we love dies, the thoughts surrounding their death impact us tremendously. Because of how powerful our thoughts are.

In the same way, if you tell a child from its birth that it is worthless and you drill that thought into them day after day- it starts to become their inner monologue. The statement isn’t true, yet they believe it as if it is.

So many of our negative thoughts have become truths to us. Whether it’s what we think about ourselves, others, or how the world operates. The more we believe the thoughts, the more the thoughts are validated, and the truer they become to us.

But that doesn’t make any of those thoughts true. It just makes them thoughts. Thoughts that we need to be questioning instead of automatically believing.

You can stand in front of the mirror every day and tell yourself that you are worthless, that doesn’t make it true. We all have worth. We are worth so much that Jesus sacrificed His life for us.

Becoming disciplined in the practice of renewing of the mind allows us to question our thoughts and beliefs and see the lies we have believed about any and everything and replace them with truth.

2. Prayer for the Renewal of the Mind

Asking God to show you when you should renew your mind is the best way to start this journey. We are blessed to have the power of the Holy Spirit who can tell us when our thoughts are negative or unproductive. Ask Him to show you how to renew your mind from negative thoughts.

Here is a prayer you can use to ask God to help you renew your mind:

“Heavenly Father, I come before you today asking for the renewal of my mind. Transform my thoughts and attitudes to align more with You each day. Help me to not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by having my mind renewed in Your truth.

Lord, I know my mind needs constant renewal in order to follow You wholeheartedly. Please reveal to me any areas of my thinking that are not submitted fully to You. Show me any lies I have believed or toxic thought patterns I have allowed into my mind. Bring to light any ways I have drifted from Your truth. I ask for Your conviction so I can repent and have my mind cleansed and refreshed.

God, fill my mind with Your Word and truth. Wash away my impurities with the wisdom in Scripture. Help me to meditate constantly on what is noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable from Your perspective. Use Your Word as a sword to slice through the lies that have infiltrated my thinking. Transform me into the likeness of Christ by the renewing work of Your Spirit.

Thank You for the mind of Christ that You have given me. I surrender my thoughts to You today. Have Your way in my mind and do whatever it takes to make me spiritually minded. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

3. Fill Your Mind with God’s Word

In order to renew your mind, it is best practice to know God’s word. The more you know, the easier it is to know whether or not your thoughts are true.

I love analogies and I’m going to give you my favorite one that I’ve heard and turn it into an analogy for reading the Bible.

There are two dogs (hypothetically) that live inside you. The one you feed more is the one that grows and directs your actions, your thoughts, and your life.

One dog represents worldly influence and the other represents Godly influence.

You feed the worldly influence by participating in sin, conforming to the world, and not listening to God, etc. You feed the Godly influence by reading the Bible, praying, going to church, etc.

The dogs are at constant war with each other, but the more you feed one, the stronger it becomes and can weaken the other to the point it no longer influences you.

In order to renew your mind, reading your bible is crucial. If you don’t know where to start, I recommend starting in the New Testament. You can learn why and grab a New Testament Reading Plan from me here.

Here are a few ways to fill your mind with God’s word:

1. Read your bible
2. Memorize verses (here are some for anxiety)
3. Meditate on Scripture
4. Study books of the bible (here are my favorite commentaries by Warren Weirsbe)
5. Attend a bible study
6. Apply the word of God
7. Read Christian books
8. Listen to Sermons (here is a sermon on renewing the mind)
9. Download an app to read the Bible to you
10. Find someone or somewhere that offers discipleship

4. Renew Your Mind by Replacing Your Thoughts with God’s Word

Not only should you fill your mind with truth, but you should also intentionally replace lies with God’s truth. A renewed mind comes from both putting in truth and taking out lies.

A Romans 12:2 explanation is simply taking our thoughts and ideas and filtering them through the word of God. And when you know God’s word you start replacing worldly, negative, toxic, and unhealthy thoughts with His word.

For example, you may struggle with negative thoughts like, “I’m worthless” or “I’ll never change” on a regular basis. When you feel overwhelmed by those unhealthy patterns, take them captive and make them obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Confront them with Biblical truth that you are loved, valued, and changing into Christ’s image.

While reading your Bible you can highlight verses that you want to memorize or write down to replace your thoughts. (If you need a system on how to highlight your Bible here you go!)

I suggest starting with your most common negative thoughts. Write them down and then find verses to combat them.

Once you begin to recognize your unhealthy or untruthful thoughts, you can start replacing them with God’s word. This is renewing your mind. Replace the thoughts with the truth of God’s word.

If you would like a list of verses that combat common unhealthy thoughts you can grab them at the end of this post.

5. Renewing Your Mind Requires You to Take Every Thought Captive

To renew your mind, you must take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Don’t allow anxiety, unforgiveness, lust, anger, or other toxic thoughts to go unchecked. Actively confront them with the truth.

Catch yourself when your mind starts to go down the wrong path. Pray your own prayer or use the prayer above to be mindful of your thoughts.

Start paying attention to your thoughts. You can write them down using my “Renew Your Mind” freebie below or you can use a journal. Draw a line down the middle and put your thoughts on one side and verses on the other.

Once you recognize a thought that you need to take captive replace it with God’s word.

The more you practice the easier it becomes to recognize these thoughts, take them captive, and replace them with God’s word.

6. Guard Your Heart

In a world that tells us to follow our hearts, the Bible tells us that our heart is deceitful above all things. (Jeremiah 17:9)

Renewing your mind involves guarding your heart as well. Your thoughts flow out of the heart’s condition (Proverbs 4:23). That’s why you must nurture your inner life through prayer, worship, fellowship, and studying the Word.

Set your mind and heart and affections on things above (Colossians 3:1). Chase after the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and other fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Guard against filling your heart with worthless things that distort God’s truth.

The Bible tells us: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble (whatever is honorable), whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” Philippians 4:8 When our mind goes to thoughts of negativity, remember that we can also think about these things instead.

Make your relationship with Christ the number one priority. When your heart overflows with His presence, your thoughts will follow. Renewal starts in the heart before extending to the mind.

Commit to the Process of Renewing Your Mind

Renewing your mind requires a lifelong commitment to the process. There is no quick fix to transform your thinking. It takes diligently immersing yourself in God’s word over the long haul.

However, once you become disciplined in capturing your thoughts, questioning them and replacing them it becomes easier and easier. When you know God’s word you know truth, and when you know truth it’s easier to spot all of the lies your mind tries to tell you.

Don’t get discouraged if you catch yourself thinking unbiblically. Press into Christ and His truth. A Christian life isn’t a perfect life, it is a life being sanctified by Christ. The more you focus on Him, the more your thoughts align with His perfect will.

Also, don’t try to renew your mind solely by your own power. Depend on the Holy Spirit to empower the process. As Paul says in Titus 3:5, “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

Walk closely with Jesus every day. Surrender your mind to Him continually. Renewal is a lifelong journey that leads to incredible freedom and transformation.

FREE Renew Your Mind Worksheets

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