Renewing Your Mind

This was my morning reading a couple of days ago, and the last verse, verse 24, stirred in me the need to share it and my thoughts on this with you.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:17-24

Do we still walk as Gentiles do?

Now the Gentiles that Paul mentions here are unbelievers, not Gentiles per se, for we are all Gentiles if taken in the traditional meaning of the word. As Christians, we are spiritual Israelites, grafted into the vine! So Paul here is speaking to you and me, believers of the fact that Christ Jesus is the Risen LORD; Christians as the world classfies us.

Do you still love things of this world? Do you covet riches and that brand-new BMW or this or that? If so, then your mind is still in this world while you might profess to be Christian. Have we indeed put off our old selves, where there’s futility in our minds, and our bodies filled with corrupt and deceitful desires?

I don’t think many of us have. We still love things in and of the world, without which some of us might find life un-interesting and bland. But what many of us do not realize is how significant it is that we are new creatures in Christ.

For we’ve become strangers in a strange land!

Just as Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, so are we not of it, for we belong in His kingdom. So if we are not to see ourselves as strangers here in this world, then what are we? If this fact is not spelt out and ingrained in us, then there can be no renewal in the spirit of our minds as Paul instructed. Consider the word of our Lord Jesus Christ when He advised us

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

How many of us still hold on to laying up treasures here on earth, instead of in heaven? Forsake pulpit pimps who tell you that God will bless you with riches and brand-new cars and $40 million houses. That’s not what Christ taught!

Consider this: did Christ come to die for your new house or car, or did He come to save you by dying on the cross and offering you His free gift of salvation?

In fact, the Bible says that if you covet, you are an idolator! And idolators enter not into the kingdom of God!

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Ephesians 5:5

To put off the old self, we are to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. What is Paul talking about? Is there a spirit of the mind? I pondered about this “spirit of the mind” for a good while, and here’s what I think:

The “spirit of the mind” is the essence of our thoughts! Firing up dictionary.com on the word ’spirit’ gives us this definition:

an attitude or principle that inspires, animates, or pervades thought, feeling, or action; the soul or heart as the seat of feelings or sentiments, or as prompting to action

So the “spirit of the mind” that Paul speaks of is the essence of our minds — whatever pervades our thoughts that leads to actualization in our actions. When the essence of our minds is worldliness, we shall therefore be worldly and our thoughts shall direct us to actions that fulfil what our minds and hearts desire.

Yet, notice and engrave in our heart too that we are new creatures in Christ created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, so in renewing the spirit of our minds, remember that well! We are new creatures after the likeness of God!

Thoughts and actions are intimately interlinked — what our thoughts direct, we do, and what we do seeps into our consciousness and shapes us in our minds.

When you have the renewal of your mind in all things Godly, then shall we bear good fruit through our actions which shall be pleasing and glorifying to the LORD.

The Apostle Peter called us to be holy and live holy lives as God is holy.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct

1 Peter 1:13-15

Therefore, as we celebrate Christmas this year, and look ahead with excitement and anticipation to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us renew the spirit of our minds by not being of the world but being the people of God’s kingdom as He has called us.

Let us pray and ask for the Holy Spirit to work in our transformation that we might truly bear good fruit!

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

Shalom Aleichem.