Romans 12:2 (NLT)

“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” 

1. My thoughts direct my life

Proverbs 4:23 (GNT)

“Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.” 

Process of behavior

Identity > Beliefs > Mindsets > Environments > Behaviors

2. My struggles happen in my mind

Romans 7:22-23 (TLB)

“I love to do God's will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there’s something else deep within me that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin within me. In my mind I want to be God's servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin.”

Jamie Winship, Live Fearlessly

“Eve eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because she fears that she isn’t enough. She is tempted by the serpent to believe that God is withholding what she needs to be enough. Eve already possessed deep within her everything she would ever need. She engaged the doubt and disconnected from her life source, then fear crept in. The doubt produced fear. She had a choice at this point to listen to the affirming voice of God or give in to the doubt that she needed something God might not provide. She eats the fruit, and she exchanges life in all its abundance for a corrupted life. Now she’s stuck in this cycle of constantly needing something that appeals to her flesh to temporarily remove her doubt, her shame, and her guilt.” 

Ephesians 4:23-24 (CEV) 

“Let the Spirit change your way of thinking and make you into a new person. You were created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” 

Romans 8:6 (NCV)

“If your thinking is controlled by your old sinful self, it leads to death. But if your thinking is controlled by the Holy Spirit, that leads to life and peace.”

 3. Every day I must choose to feed my mind with the best thoughts

Philippians 4:8 (GNT)

“Brothers and sisters, fill your minds with thoughts that are true, noble, right, pure, beautiful, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worth praising.” 

Proverbs 15:14 (NLT) 

“A wise person is hungry for truth, while the fool feeds on trash.”

Mark 1:9-11 (NLT)

One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”

Identity is not something we earn or achieve; it is a gift freely given by God through grace. 

John 1:16–17 (ESV)

For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Romans 6:14 (ESV)

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Hebrews 8:7-13 (NIV)

7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.

8 But God found fault with the people and said:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord,

  when I will make a new covenant

with the people of Israel

  and with the people of Judah.

9 It will not be like the covenant

  I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

  to lead them out of Egypt,

because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,

  and I turned away from them,

declares the Lord.

10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel

  after that time, declares the Lord.

I will put my laws in their minds

  and write them on their hearts.

I will be their God,

  and they will be my people.

11 No longer will they teach their neighbor,

  or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know me,

  from the least of them to the greatest.

12 For I will forgive their wickedness

  and will remember their sins no more.”

13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

2 Corinthians 6:18 (NIV)

"I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty".

1 John 3:1 (ESV)

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. 

John 1:12 (ESV)

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God". 

Ephesians 1:5 (NIV)

Actual verse: he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

Summary? : Through faith in Christ, we are adopted into God's family and given a new identity as a child of God. 

Galatians 3:26 (NIV)

"So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith".

Galatians 4:6-7 (ESV)

"And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God"

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (NIV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 8:5 (NLT)

“Those who are dominated by their sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.”  

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (NIV)

“Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. [Our weapons] have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish any argument and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we TAKE CAPTIVE EVERY THOUGHT to make it OBEDIENT to Christ.”