Transformation does not come from surrendering our heart but by surrendering our beliefs. 

I became a follower of Jesus at age 19. My girlfriend (who is now my wife), Wendy, and I started attending an Assemblies of God church in Northern California. My belief system at that time was if I went to church and didn't feel saved, I would believe (“renew my mind”” with those feelings. If they gave the altar call to get saved, I would go up again. One day, I heard this from the Lord, “Steve, I have great news for you. You are saved even when you don’t feel saved.” I thought, “Wow, That is amazing. I thought feelings were the highest indicator of truth there is.” No, feelings do not validate truth, they just validate what we believe to be true.

Even after hearing that I was saved when I did not feel saved, I would still come to church not feeling saved. When they gave the salvation altar call again, I would find myself wanting to go down to the front to get saved again, but I would hear the voice of the Lord say, “Steve, do not go up there. Stay, Steve, stay.”  I would think, “But, Lord, I know if I go up there I’ll feel better and will break this spirit of heaviness off me!” He said, “I’m going to show you how to break off this spirit of heaviness. It’s not by doing something different, it’s by believing something different.”

As I look back on that experience, I realize it was one of the first times I learned that the nature of faith is to believe something higher than what we are feeling and experiencing. 

Wendy and I got married a couple of years later and stayed in this church another thirteen years. It was a season of living in Romans 12:1 of “giving our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord.” In 1991, the Lord wanted to add a layer to this foundation of surrendering our hearts and our wills to the Lord. To do this, He sent us to pastor in the central Nevada desert. And do you know what we learned there? It’s this: the Lord loves to send people to the desert to repent, and the best definition of repentance is “to change the way you think”.

We heard this in our spirits: “Steve and Wendy, I love your heart for Romans 12:1 but if you are going to see transformation, I need to move you into Romans 12:2.” Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and excellent and perfect will of God.”

Transformation doesn't come from surrendering your heart; it comes from surrendering your beliefs. Transformation is experiencing what Jesus won for us on the cross for us. One of the main ways transformation happens is through the renewing of the mind. 

This revelation was challenging to us because we grew up in a culture where we believed the reason we weren’t having breakthroughs is because we hadn’t given God our heart enough. With that mindset, my wife, Wendy, was crying out to the Lord. She said, “Lord, I give you my heart! I give you my heart! I guess I am not capable of truly giving you my heart, so just take my heart!” She heard back from the Lord, “Wendy, I have your heart. Now I need your mind.” 

Any belief that does not have hope attached to it is a belief to be surrendered.. Romans 15:13 says, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing…” 

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  Increasing hope is an indicator we’re renewing our mind with truth instead of lies.
• Decreasing hope is an indicator we’re renewing our minds with lies instead of truth.

We renew our minds with whatever we regularly come into agreement with. It can be as seemingly small as believing we do not remember names well. If we come into agreement with that, our experience will be transformed into greater experiences of not remembering names well. 

If I want to experience something higher, I need to believe something higher. Most people only renew their minds with their feelings and past experiences. We cannot do this if we are possess our promises and increase dramatically our influence. The nature of faith is that we are to believe something higher than what we’re feeling an experiencing. The best question to ask ourselves in the morning is not, “What do I feel today?” but “What do I believe today?”

Today is a day where we celebrate surrendering our hearts and will to the Lord. But we also celebrate and elevate the need to surrender our beliefs. What we believe is truly more important than what we do.