Have you ever given serious thought to what it truly means to “renew our minds”?  It is not something we just do whenever we feel like it.  Rather, it is a daily, intentional decision to pray, take up our cross, follow Him, and allow Him to change us from the inside out.  The Apostle Paul spoke to this when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

It is difficult to stay consistently focused on His purposes because we get distracted by the cares of this world and often forget that this world is not our final home.  We tend to get consumed with whatever we think is important and we don’t slow down long enough to be still before Him and really listen to what God is telling us to do so He can reveal His perfect purposes to us (Psalm 46:10).  Jesus spoke of the weakness and sinfulness of our fleshly desires when He said in Matthew 26:41, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”