WCBC Blog

Ephesians 4:22-24

 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

It is clear in Scripture that we are commanded to put off the old man. The old man is the old us, the sinful state we lived in before salvation. The old man is corrupt, corrupted by sin which has been inherited from the first sinner Adam. Telling a christian that they are to live differently from the life they lived before Christ is not a shocker, truthfully it should come naturally to a  true believer. We now have a different goal a different master. Before Christ life was all about self, “What do I want?” “What pleases me?” “What makes me happy?”. Now the question is “What pleases God?” “How can I glorify my Lord?” Our goal has changed, our desires have changed. We are new in Christ, He has completely transformed our life. We no longer are slaves to sin but are free to live for Him. If this is true then it seems logical that all Christians should be living sin free God honoring lives, but the truth is that all of us have hypocrisy and all of us still fight the battle of self.

The reason is the flesh. Yes we are renewed in Christ but we still have this old smelly dirty coat on. Its called our flesh. Until we go home to be with the Lord we can never lose our flesh and therefore will always fight it. This is why Ephesians commands us to put off the old man. Ok, you say I want to put off the old man but how?

The whole issue is the mind. Christians are to think different then pagans. When we think different we will act different. Salvation is first off a change of mind. The reality is unsaved people can’t think right, they lack spiritual discernment and guidance from the Holy Spirit. Within this world there are simply two ways to think. God’s way and the worlds way. The greatest problem that most Christians have is that instead of having the mind of Christ, the Word saturated mind with spiritual discernment and a Biblical Worldview they are still living life from the worldly view. We must realize that we are no a new creature in Christ and we can not think like we did without Christ. We are a  new man.

The key to changing the mind is guarding what you put in. Take a moment and consider your average day, how much of God’s philosophy goes in and how much of the worlds goes in? We read two verses of the bible and 5 sections of the local paper. We listen to at best three 45 minute messages a week and watch 4 movies, 10 tv shows and wonder why we still think like the world. We memorize box scores, reciepes, and political talking points yet have no room for scripture.

The world around us is no longer dominated by Christian thought. Although sad it is expected. What is not expected is that the church is slowly becoming more dominated by a worldly worldview then a Bible worldview. We must get the world out of the church, starting by getting the world out of us. We must put off the old man.

Put on the new man…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 10:01 am and is filed under Dave's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.