Then is this not done by hearing the gospel of Christ. Is it not me that changes my mind on what I am hearing and believing or does God change my mind by force and makes me believe what I am hearing in the gospel?
God does not change your mind by force. That is looking at it entirely from the perspective of man and man's reasoning. Let's look at it from the perspective of God. And you do not change your mind anymore than a leopard can change its spots.
God is all good, perfect good. He is the source of life and apart from Him we do not live, or move or have any being. We do not exist. So anything good we have must come from Him. In juxtaposition to Him, we are limited in all our ways, including in our understanding---our mind. It is our mind that informs our will, and our will that moves us one way or the other.
The Bible tells us without equivocation in Eph 2:1-3 that we are dead in our tresasses and sins.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience---among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Paul then says in verse 4 and 5
But, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ---by grace you have been saved---
Paul also tells us in 1 Cor 2:14
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Since it is your mind, your understanding, that informs your will, how are you to understand and choose Christ when you hear the gospel. if as scripture says, you are dead to spiritual things and are unable to understand them? It is a change of heart (will) that takes place and that is something only God can do. Not only that, it is something He says He will do. (Ezek 36:26) Jesus tells of this in great detail in John 3. It is a regeneration, a new birth, that takes place by God through the Holy Spirit. JOhn 1:12-13
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
There is no force on the mind, but a gentle, loving, sweet, sweet grace of God in the heart, bringing to life what was dead. The result is repentance.
