From Lost to Loved: A 30-Day Study of Romans 8Sample

Paul drives the nail deeper in Romans 8:6. What you set your mind on determines your direction. But notice, Paul doesn’t frame this in the syrupy tones of self-help. This isn’t about “stacking” wins or 10x outcomes.

This is life and death.

The Greek word Paul uses for “set the mind,” phronēma, means a mindset. It implies focus, striving, and aspiration.[1] Paul is describing the way the mind commits itself to chase what it treasures. Set your mind on the flesh, and death awaits. The Pillar New Testament Commentary describes the fleshly mind as “a thoroughgoing concentration on the things that pertain to this life.”[2] It is a life obsessed with comfort, control, and self-preservation. It preaches peace through escape or achievement.

But the mind set on the Spirit is entirely different. It lives awake to God’s presence and responds to His prompting. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just comfort, He reforms. He reshapes how we think, what we value, and how we walk. Life in the Spirit isn’t just sin avoidance or behavior modification; it’s the presence of a new inner life.

This life is rooted in the Good News that Christ died in our place, rose in power, and broke the curse of sin. He secured our peace with God not by erasing the burden but by bearing it. The condemnation we earned fell on Him. Now we live in the peace of a righteousness poured out through Christ not performed by us.

For Paul, peace isn’t sentimental calm or a few stress-free moments with a candle lit in a safe space. The world sells peace as escape or numbness, but Paul says anything short of Spirit-given peace is death disguised as calm. True peace is the settled assurance that even in the storm, you belong to God. That’s the mindset Paul calls us into in Romans 8:6. Your life is not anchored in striving but in Spirit-given peace.

The mind is never neutral. It’s always building toward something. When set on the flesh, it constructs a future of death. When set on the Spirit, your world becomes a living cathedral of life and peace. There is no third path, no safe in-between. Ask the Spirit to form His mind in you today. To be of any other mind is just death in disguise.

REFLECT:
When the storm hits, does your mind bow to comfort and control as your gods or the Spirit who gives life and peace?

[1]William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1066.

[2]Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 305.