“To be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” – Ephesians 4:23-24
As believers of Christ, we are ought to abandon our old self and start living our new self. Before, we were once enemies of God. We are sinful, ungrateful, unrighteous and wicked. We only dwell on wickedness and sit at the seat of sinners. For so many reasons, we cannot escape this nature and even if we know that it is wrong, we are still delighting in darkness.
However, since Christ died on our stead, He has given us new nature. He has given us a new self so that in it we will start our new life with Him. Now, on our verse today, Paul wants to remind us that our old nature will always try to crawl its way out. It will always try to win and control us again. Thus, the first part after giving ourselves to Christ is to renew our minds. We have to renew and reboot our minds. Reprogram it according to the new self Christ has given us.
We have to understand that it is not easy though. They say that habits are really hard to break, and it is indeed. It will be so hard for us to fully turn our backs to our old self and not turn back to it again. It is very hard for us to stop something we always do. It is very hard for us to hate something that we love doing. That is why God wants to encourage us that even if it is hard, it is possible. Turning away from our old sinful selves is possible even if it’s hard.
Thus, achieving this would mean that we have to renew our minds and align our mindset to the holiness and righteousness of God. Since Christ already died and rose again for us, He has already defeated sin and death for us. He has also restored us to the loving presence of our God, we are also given new self together with that. He has given us the Holy Spirit so that He will live inside us, strengthen our faith, grow our faith and nourish us about everything we need to learn about what it is to be a Christian.
Therefore, we must renew our minds and always align our minds to the Will of God. Yet, how can we do this if our old self will continue to crawl its way back? How can we align and renew our minds if the world we live in seeks to bring us back to our sinful nature? Well, the perfect answer would be to immerse ourselves in the Word of God. We have to always understand and know that the Word of God is indeed alive and active and it is sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). If old habits die hard, then the Word of God can penetrate it even if it is very hard to break.
We have to immerse ourselves in the Word of God and make it as our basis and our standards. God gave us the Bible as His love letter for us and in there we will find everything we want to know and everything that God wants us to do. So, we must always meditate on it day and night because indeed that faith comes from hearing and hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Thus, this means that our faith will indeed grow and grow if we continue to read and hear the Word of God. Also, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), so we are really guided by the Holy Spirit and we only need to listen to His voice as He leads us to the straight path of righteousness and holiness.
We must remember always to put on the new self God has provided us through believing in the death and resurrection of Christ. May we always immerse ourselves to the Word of God and listen to the guidance voice of the Holy Spirit so that our minds will be renewed. Let us always remember that we are ought to live our lives as new creations and that we are ought to be righteous and holy for God made us holy and righteous.
