It’s never a good idea to take off sweaty, stinky, stained clothes and immediately put on clean dress clothes.
A shower or bath to get the crud off the body is clearly needed at such a time.
Spiritually speaking, though, we’ve all occasionally fallen into the trap of doing just that when we were convicted of the need to change how we’ve been doing things.
Perhaps we were caught in what seemed to be a revolving door of sinful choices that stained us, wounded others and disappointed God. We decided that the pattern was no good and we needed to stop and make amends.
We didn’t want to repent, though, because that would wound our pride and so we simply started walking the correct path and hoped that was good enough to appease God.
In effect, we put on the garments of goodness so that we looked like we were Christians but we didn’t do anything about the attitude and values that got us into trouble in the first place.
That’s better than no spiritual change, of course, but it is also less than what God wants.
What? Putting on garments of goodness is not enough? How can that be?
Check out these words from Ephesians 4:22-24.
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 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.”
The Apostle Paul teaches here that we don’t get from an “old self” status to a “new self” status simply by changing our behavioral choices. There has to be a change within, a change to the attitude of our minds.
Without a change in our inner person, we’re just putting a new coat of paint on the rusted clunker of our lives before we drive off the cliff.
Listen, we’re to be involved in a congregation not just to learn socially and spiritually acceptable behavior for Christians, but also to learn the value and process for the renewing of our minds.
Romans 12:1-2 tell us that we become living sacrifices through the renewing of our minds. Please flush the non-Christlike thinking out of your minds by replacing it with Bible teachings about Christ and about other many other people of faith described in the Bible.
As you learn more about them, you’ll learn more about how their encounters with God’s Word shaped them into desiring the “new self” things that Christ demonstrated so perfectly in His life.
Our happiest and holiest days await us, my friend.
Let’s pursue them together, daily showering our minds with time in the Word.
As always, I love you
Martin
