“Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires . . . be made new in the attitude of your minds; and . . . put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."
Ephesians 4:22-24 (NIV) If you want to have lasting change in your life, you have to start with your body—and your mind is part of your body. So, to change your life, you have to change the way you think. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (NIV). That word “transformed” in the Greek is the word we get “metamorphosis” from. Metamorphosis is what happens when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. When a caterpillar wraps itself in a cocoon, it eventually comes out. But it’s been transformed—not into a better version of a caterpillar, but into a totally different creature. That’s not improvement. That’s radical transformation! And only God can do that. Radical transformation is what God wants for you, too. You can turn over a new leaf on your own, but only God can give you a new life. He does this by renewing your mind. Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires . . . be made new in the attitude of your minds; and . . . put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (NIV). Notice that there’s a putting off and a putting on. The health of your mind really comes down to stopping some stuff you need to stop doing and starting some stuff you need to start doing. Stop putting negative, hurtful things into your mind. Start watching and listening to things that make you more like Christ. In the renewal of your mind, you’ve got to put off before you can put on. Let’s say you go to a store to look for a new coat. You find one to try on. But if you’re wearing a coat already, you have to take off the old one before you put on the new one. That’s also true spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. Look at the verses from Ephesians 2 again. The Bible says, “Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.” The “old self” is the impulses and compulsions that pull you the wrong direction. Then you need to “be made new in the attitude of your minds.” Attitudes are kind of like diapers. You’ve got to change them every once in a while, or they start stinking. Only after you’ve put off your old self and old attitudes can you “put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Do you need change in your life today? Remember that a changed life begins with a changed mind.
0 Comments
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
Psalm 51:10 (ESV) One day, God had a message for a prophet named Jeremiah. He told him to go to a potter’s house and watch the potter make clay pots. As Jeremiah watched the potter molding and fixing the clay, he noticed something: “Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot” (Jeremiah 18:4 The Message). After Jeremiah saw this object lesson, God gave him a message for Israel: “Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you” (Jeremiah 18:6 The Message). You may have really made a mess of your life. Your “pot” is scarred from poor decisions that you made and things that were done to you. As a result, your life has not turned out as you intended. But you are the clay; you’re not the potter. God is the potter, and he doesn’t discard clay that’s been misshapen by circumstances. He doesn’t waste the pain that you’ve been through. God doesn’t throw out the personality and the essence of who he created you to be. Instead, he takes every part of you—the good, the bad, and the ugly. He puts it all in his gentle but strong hands. And then he starts over with shaping your life, applying pressure at just the right places to mold you and remake you into a beautiful, priceless piece of art. That’s what happens when you surrender yourself completely to God’s loving hands. God specializes in fresh starts. You can have a new beginning today, simply by starting with King David’s prayer in Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (ESV). It’s never too late to start over. Bring whatever chaos is in your life to God, the Great Potter. Trust him to do a new work in your life. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart."
Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV) No matter how far you are from God today, there is a pathway back to him. Maybe you haven’t been to church in years, or you’ve just been distant for a month or two. Maybe you’ve had one of those weeks where you thought, “I really don’t feel God’s presence in my life.” And yet you long to be close to God. How do you get back to him? Here is a pathway to spiritual transformation—the three things you need to do to get back to God: Realize you need to change. Nothing is going to change in your life until you get dissatisfied with the way you are. You need to get to the point where you say, “I don’t like this. I’m tired of being stressed out all the time. I’m tired of being frustrated all the time. I’m tired of being overworked all the time. I’m tired of feeling distant from God.” Why does God let you get to that point? Because he loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way. He will not let you waste your life. God says in Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart” (ESV). Own up to your sin. Isaiah 59:2 says, “The trouble is that your sins have cut you off from God. Because of sin he has turned his face away from you” (TLB). Have you ever prayed and felt like God was a million miles away or like there was a wall between you and God? Where does that distance come from? Your sins have separated you from God. But if you feel far from God, guess who moved? You! God has always been there. He loves you unconditionally, and he’s waiting for you to own up to your sin so you can have a right relationship with him again. Give up control. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like him. This change in us brings ever greater glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (NCV). True transformation happens when your heart moves from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. Are you there yet? That transformation doesn’t happen overnight. God is going to work on you your entire life. But to start the process, you have to make a decision to repent and, “in view of God’s mercy, to offer your [body] as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1 NIV). God wants to be close to you. And he promises that when you seriously seek him, you will not be disappointed. Watch expectantly how God works in your life this coming year as you seek him with all your heart, mind, and soul. “The darkness in our lives disappears and the new light of life in Christ shines in.”
1 John 2:8 (TLB) Why does God talk so much about light in the Bible? Because God is light. When he is Savior and Lord of your life, the light of his love gives you hope in the dark days: “The darkness in our lives disappears and the new light of life in Christ shines in” (1 John 2:8 TLB). So here’s a question for you: Are you ready to exchange your darkness and the dark days you’re going through for God’s light? Jesus came to light up your life. Jesus didn’t come alive at Christmas. He has always existed, because he’s God: “Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God” (John 1:1 TLB). Jesus has been in existence for eternity. He created everything. Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. You see, when you try to live your life without God, you live it in the dark. It’s why things don’t make sense to you—because you don’t have the illumination of the Holy Spirit at work in your life. It’s why you’re burdened with negative emotions. It’s why you’re not healed of the brokenness in your life. And it’s why you stop growing. It’s time to flip the switch and let the light of Christ into your life—not just for your dark days but for all your days. Do you want to trade darkness for light in your life? “And let steadfastness have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
James 1:4 (ESV) Be patient with God and with yourself. God’s timetable is rarely the same as yours. You’re often in a hurry—but God isn’t. It can be frustrating when it feels like the progress you’re making is slow. But remember this: God is never in a hurry, but he is always on time. He will use your entire lifetime to prepare you for your role in eternity. The Bible is filled with examples of how God uses a long process to develop character, especially in leaders. He took 80 years to prepare Moses, including 40 in the wilderness. For those 14,600 wilderness days, Moses kept waiting and wondering, “Is it time?” But God kept saying, “Not yet.” Great souls are grown through struggles, storms, and seasons of suffering. Be patient with the process. James advised, “Don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed” (James 1:4 The Message). Don’t get discouraged. When Habakkuk became depressed because he didn’t think God was acting quickly enough, God said: “These things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!” (Habakkuk 2:3 TLB). Remember how far you’ve come, not just how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be. Years ago people wore a popular button with the letters PBPGINFWMY. It stood for “Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet.” God isn’t finished with you either. Be patient with him and with yourself. And keep on moving forward. “Practice these things. Devote your life to them so that everyone can see your progress.”
Timothy 4:15 (GW) The moment you give your life to Jesus, he gives you a brand-new nature. But you will still have old habits, patterns, and practices that need to be removed and replaced. It’s a lifelong process, but here are two bits of guidance to help you on the journey. Let go of the fears that keep you from growing. The truth will set you free, but it often makes you miserable first. The fear of what you might discover if you honestly face your character defects can keep you living in the prison of denial. Only as God is allowed to shine the light of his truth on your faults, failures, and hang-ups can you begin to work on them. This is why you cannot grow without a humble, teachable attitude. Stop basing your identity around your “defects.” You say, “It’s just like me to be . . .” or “It’s just the way I am.” The unconscious worry is that if you let go of your hurt, hang-up, or habit, you won’t know who you are anymore. This fear can definitely slow your growth. Remember that your character is the sum total of your habits—and good habits take time to develop. You can’t claim to have integrity unless it’s your habit to always be honest. A husband who is faithful to his wife most of the time is not faithful at all! Your habits define your character. Remember: You have to practice every day the habits that will make you more like Christ. “Devote your life to them so that everyone can see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15 GW). “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.”
Proverbs 4:23 (GNT) God is far more interested in changing your mind than changing your circumstances. You want God to take away all of the problems, pain, sorrow, suffering, sickness, and sadness. But God wants to work on you first—because transformation won’t happen in your life until you renew your mind, until your thoughts begin to change. Why is it so important that you learn how to manage your mind? Let me give you three reasons . . . Manage your mind because your thoughts control your life. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts” (GNT). Your thoughts have tremendous ability to shape your life for good or for bad. For example, maybe you accepted the thought someone told you when you were growing up: “You’re worthless. You don’t matter.” If you accepted that thought, even though it was wrong, it shaped your life. Manage your mind because the mind is the battleground for sin. All temptation happens in the mind. Paul says in Romans 7:22-23, “I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin” (TLB). One of the reasons why you get mentally fatigued is because there’s a battle in your brain 24 hours a day. It’s debilitating because it’s intense, and it’s intense because your mind is your greatest asset. Satan wants your greatest asset! Manage your mind because it’s the key to peace and happiness. An unmanaged mind leads to tension; a managed mind leads to tranquility. An unmanaged mind leads to conflict; a managed mind leads to confidence. An unmanaged mind leads to stress. (When you don’t try to control your mind and the way you direct your thoughts, you will have an enormous amount of stress in your life.) But a managed mind leads to strength, security, and serenity. The Bible teaches, “Letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace” (Romans 8:6 NLT). Choose life and peace for yourself today. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Romans 12:2 (NIV) If you want to have lasting change in your life, you need to refocus your mind. Specifically, you need to change your thought patterns away from what you don’t want to focus on and toward what you do want to focus on. Because whatever you focus on is what you move toward. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2 NIV). That’s the blueprint you need in order to change your thought patterns. Let’s look at each part:
How does this happen? The Bible tells you in Ephesians 4:22-24 “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” (NIV). This means you are going to have to do some putting off and you are going to have to do some putting on—and the putting off has to happen before the putting on. It’s just like trying on clothes in a department store. Before you can try on the new stuff, you have to take off the old stuff. Start today with beginning to let go of the old attitudes, thought patterns, and images you’ve been living with. Then get ready to put on the new garments God has for you. “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.”
Ephesians 4:23 (NLT) Change requires new thinking. In order to change, you must learn the truth and start making good choices, but you also must change the way you think. The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act. If you want to change the way you act, start by changing the way you think. In addition, if you want to change the way you feel, you must start with the way you think. For instance, you can say, “I need to love my spouse more.” But just saying that isn’t going to change anything. You can’t fight your way into a feeling. You must change the way you think about your spouse. This will change the way you feel, which will then change the way you act. The Bible says, “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes” (Ephesians 4:23 NLT). The battle for sin—the battle to deal with those defects in your life that you don’t like—starts in your mind. If you want to change your behavior or emotions, start with your thoughts and attitude. The renewal of your mind is related to the word “repentance.” Repentance might seem like a dirty word for a lot of people. They think it means something bad, something they don’t really want to do, something painful. They think of a guy standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “Repent! The world’s about to end!” But “repent” simply means to make a mental U-turn. Repentance is about more than changing your behavior. It’s about changing your mind and learning to think differently. You turn from guilt to forgiveness, from frustration to freedom, from darkness to light, from hatred and bitterness to love. You may also need to change the way you think about God. He’s not mad at you; he’s mad about you! You’re deeply flawed, but you’re deeply loved. Start with your mind. You can change the way you think about all kinds of things—your relationships, the economy, the world, and your past, present, and future. Changing the way you think will eventually change your emotions and your behavior. “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.”
Ephesians 4:22 (NLT) Change requires making choices. It’s not enough to dream of changing. It’s not enough to desire change. To change, you need to make a decision. You must choose to change. Change is intentional. Are you going to be any different in six months? Are you going to be better a year from now? Are you going to be healthier, stronger, and more mature? Are you going to be happier? Are you going to be less in debt? Are you going to be more like God wants you to be? I can tell you the answer right now: These changes will only happen if you choose to change—because change doesn’t happen accidentally. Change requires a choice. A lot of times we think we’re waiting on God to change us. No! God is waiting on you. He’s waiting on you to say, “Yes, Lord, I’m willing to make these changes.” You will need to make intentional choices in order to grow. There is no growth without change, there is no change without loss, and there is no loss without pain. If you are going to grow, you will have to change. And change means you let go of some old things in order to grab hold of some new things. It’s like swinging on a trapeze. The trapeze artist swings out on one bar and then has to reach out and grab the other one. At some point, he’s got to let go of one to grab on to the other, or he’s not going to make it to the other side. If he thinks he can hold on to both, what happens? He gets stuck in the middle, and he’s going to fall. Some of you are stuck in the middle, and you’re falling because you haven’t let go of the old patterns, the old habits, and the old ways of thinking. You have to let go of your old ways. The Bible says, “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life” (Ephesians 4:22 NLT). In other words, let it go. Those old habits, those old hurts, those old patterns, those old sins in your life—let them go. The Bible says to throw them off and trust that God is working in you “to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13 NIV). |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
All
Archives
July 2024
|