Put Away

Your Former Way Of Life

Now this I affirm and insist on in the LORD: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:17-24

God doesn’t just want to reupholster or recover our old ways. He wants to completely remake us. He is not interested in merely changing our spiritual appearance. Instead, he intends to replace our character with what will be completely new. The flesh has a tendency to perform religious activity, but this is not the work of the Holy Spirit. He will completely transform us on the inside.

The process is a partnership. As we daily lay aside our old behaviors and replace them with godly ones, the God of grace works in us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

When you receive Christ, God’s work in you has just begun.

Our Daily Bread – August 23, 2005