The Misunderstanding of Romans 12:2

In Romans 12:2 it says, “2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

I used to think this verse meant “get your act together and stop sinning.” I spent years trying to apply the verse in this way. But what if getting our acts together and stopping sin wasn't even the point behind this verse? What if the point wasn't to stop sinning, but to transform our minds? And, what is it that leads to the transforming of our minds in the first place? Is it that we stop sinning? No. We will always do that. No amount of keeping the moral law will transform our minds. In fact, it is just the opposite. The more I focus on trying to keep the moral law, the more I will break it. Try to stop thinking about a pink elephant and see what happens.

The opposite of focusing on keeping the moral law is that I find myself turning to God and realizing who He says I am. He says I'm 100% forgiven already. He says I'm a saint. He says I'm His chosen one. He puts His arm around me in my deepest, darkest moment and says, "Son (or daughter), I'm here with you. You are in the middle of sin this very moment, but I'm here with you because I no longer count it against you. In fact, I stripped it away from you. Now, we are onto the process of healing you from the damage you have done and will do to yourself and others. This is now about healing now."

The world (and even more often the church) tells us that the pattern we must follow in order to be transformed into godliness is by sinning less and getting our act together. God tells us that the pattern we must follow in order to be transformed into godliness is truly recognizing that we have already been transformed into a godly creature by Him.* In this way our underlying beliefs about God's character and His value in us is what must be transformed, not our behavior. We must know that God thinks we are worth everything. The extent to which we know this about His character is the extent to which we see how glorious He is.

Over time, when we look in hindsight, we will periodically recognize how our behavior has changed as well. The changed behavior, however, only reflects the transformation that has already occurred by the renewing of our minds.

2011 addendum: About 6 months ago, I began to think of transforming my behavior in light of a transformed mind. What does this look like? One thing I have begun to do is to try to do good instead of eliminating sin. I can't defeat sin. But, I can focus on doing good. Thus, we don't break out of sin patterns and cycles by stopping them. We break out of them by doing good in the middle of them. We focus on the good. Then, I believe, the sin patterns begin to change over time. Currently, I'm making better decisions than ever before. Why? I'm focusing on doing good instead of trying to eliminate sin. This is a mindset that lives under grace.
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*This is the pattern of grace versus the pattern of legalism. I might as well summarize the whole blog entry by simply saying Romans 12:2 could be translated/interpreted as saying, "Do not conform to legalism, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."