Putting on my new self … together
Ephesians 4:17-24
17 With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. 18 Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. 19 They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.
20 But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. 21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.
Jesus completely turns things around for people who were previously not God’s people. They were outsiders (2:11), “far away” (2:17), “strangers and foreigners” (2:19), but now Christ has “brought this Good News of peace” (2:17). “Now you have been united with Christ Jesus” (2:13), and God is making a new humanity, one family (2:19) of Jews and non-Jews together. That’s a huge transformation. It starts with what God does, but in 4:17-5:20 Paul shows me it’s not something that God does to me against my will. I have a part too.
Paul tells me to “put on” this new nature that God has given me, like putting on new clothes. But putting on new clothes also means taking off the old. Paul doesn’t just tell me to take off my old self, he tells me to throw it off.
In case I’m wondering if that old self wasn’t so bad, he reminds me it was wandering far from life (v18) in hopeless confusion (v17) because of a mind full of darkness and a hardened heart (v18). The one who wandered off, closed my mind and hardened my heart is me – so it’s appropriate that I am the one who throws those things off.
But it’s not me alone. Paul also tells me, “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes” (v23) – actively opening myself to the Spirit changing me – working in partnership with the Spirit. It’s becoming increasingly clear that relationship – living and working with God’s Spirit – is both the goal of the transformation and the way God chooses to bring it about. It starts with Jesus, includes me throwing off the old and putting on the new, and actively being transformed together with the Holy Spirit.
Father, I love you and marvel that you love me even when I wander, and my heart is hard. Holy Spirit, I want you to transform my confused and darkened mind and my whole being. Jesus, I love that the biggest transformation you make is the relationship between us. I want to put on my new identity in your family, in you … today and every day.
Written by David Cornell