20)
But ye have not so learned
Christ;
21)
If so be that ye have
heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22)
That ye put off concerning
the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the
deceitful lusts;
23)
And be renewed in the
spirit of your mind;
24)
And that ye put on the new
man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
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A |
mong
most, the "born again" experience is viewed as an option. This is only
because neither the people of God nor the unredeemed really understand why this
experience is required by the Lord. The reason is because Man, in his
unredeemed, natural state, does not have the capacity to understand what he
must. He can acquire this knowledge only through the renewal of his mind-a
renewal possible only through a second, spiritual birth.
It
has been proven over the centuries that Man does not spontaneously come to any
knowledge, acceptance or understanding of truth. Try as he might, he is not
able to change his fleshly motivations nor come to the
understanding of the spiritual on his own.
We
are constantly admonished by the Lord to receive the things of the Spirit in
our minds while also being counseled not to operate by that same mind.
Confusing, isn't it? The fact of the matter is that the mind spoken of is the
"spiritual mind," and this mind is, indeed, the mind prepared to
accept the spiritual. In this case, preparation comes only through the Spirit
of God and for that mind to be prepped, it must be renewed.
For
far too long, the people of God have been deceived into believing that even
though saved, they are "stuck" with the same situations and the same
mind. If we were not to be extended far above the level of the natural man, why
would He bother to give us His own mind?
We
come to salvation with problems which can be many and serious, but we are not
to remain burden with them. Often, the reason that we have them is because the
Lord has seen that upon coming to salvation, we are ones who can be used to His
greatest glory. Seeing this, believing this and understanding this requires a
change of mind available only through the anointing of the Holy Ghost. Once
having accepted the life-changing God, unless we yield to Him, we will remain
as miserable as we were before salvation There is no
rest, no relaxation and no peace if we refuse to accept the provisions of God.
This
world and what it presents and appears to be is what the devil would present to
all people as truth. The Lord attempts to use these things to get us to trust
Him. Now, He has placed us in this world to be able to draw Man into His
kingdom. However, there are too many of us who, rather than deal with His
truth, find themselves trapped in a "false reality."
Despite
the fact that we have a means by which to be free from the oppression of the
devil, too often, we refuse to put our situations into the ands of the Lord. If it is so simple to enjoy "victory," and so difficult
to remain bound. Yet, we will ignore all prompting of the Lord to step
into "freedom" and continue to walk in the confines of our minds.
Some
of us seem to have unending troubles and if we would be honest, we would
acknowledge that the reason is because we continue trying to handle them, as
opposed to learning to trust Someone other than
ourselves. If we find ourselves described above, we need a "new
attitude," arrived by accepting what the Lord has already done.
"Be(ing) renewed in the Spirit of your mind," is achieved
through an act of will. We must accept that the human mind is at enmity with
God in order to see the necessity of its being changed. The focus of our lives
must be to put Him at the forefront, a hard task for a "race" (Man)
dedicated to themselves and their needs. Particularly today, achieving this is
just about impossible unless one yields himself to the place of a child, who
needs instruction in everything and counts himself "lost" without a
Father.
Believe it or not, all of this is easy if we would just "remember Jesus." It may seem infantile to constantly ask oneself, "What did Jesus do?" But, the truly wise will make a constant practice, for it is they who realize that of such is the kingdom of heaven.