Out With the Old and in With the New

February 19, 2018

Out With the Old and in With the New

Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.

Ephesians 4:23-24

Read: Ephesians 4:17-24

Today’s passage summarizes the core of the Apostle Paul’s teaching about what it means to be a Christian. Simply put, for Paul it is out with the old and in with the new. The old life is living by the instincts of the flesh and following the ways of the world’s culture, or as he puts it in verse 17, living like Gentiles. The new life is the life in Christ; life lived by faith in Jesus. This new life is a gift of God’s grace, where we are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the life of Christ when we make our confession of faith. (See Romans 6) Paul teaches that our old way of life will war against our new life in Christ and that our victory comes when we throw off our old sinful nature and our former way of life, and let the Holy Spirit renew our thoughts and attitudes. In our new life, we put on our new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. (Ephesians 4:22-24)

While Paul takes just seven verses to summarize this core aspect of our life in Christ, it is perhaps the most difficult part of our life in Christ to grasp. However, Paul is very clear that this is not a casual issue of feelings; “But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind.”  “So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace” (Romans 7:23, Romans 8:6). In today’s passage, and in his letter to the Romans, Paul says the place of our victory is in our mind: “to be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (Ephesians 4:23 NRSV), and “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2 NRSV). What is our part in this renewal process? Paul says our part is to learn the ways of Jesus, since truth is in Jesus. (Ephesians 4:20-21)

My Takeaway: The world has told us a pack of lies about who we are, who our neighbor is and about God. But God, in Christ Jesus is telling us the truth. Listen to him. (I recommend reading, The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ. This is a presentation of the four Gospels combined into one complete story, written in the first person singular as though Jesus was personally telling his story.)

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2018 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.