Be renewed in the spirit of your minds. – Ephesian 4:23
The hymn “Loved with Everlasting Love” says, “Heaven above is softer blue/ Earth around is sweeter green/ Something lives in every hue/ Christless eyes have never seen.” Think of it. Once you come to know the Savior, things you never saw before come sharply into view. Your perspective changes.
The apostle Paul repeatedly tells the believer to “put off your old self,” and “put on the new self” (Ephesians 4:22,24, Colossians 3:9-10, Rom 6:6). Sandwiched between the two in verses in Ephesians, verse 23, is the emphasis that you should “be renewed in the spirit of your minds.” If you put off the old without replacing it with something better, you create a vacuum in which the devil can settle. Once you are born again, the power of the Holy Spirit works within to replace the old with the new… new thoughts and new principles to live by, a new perspective. You were crucified with Christ, but are now raised to a new way of living (Hebrews 10:20).
It is an intelligent change. Your brain is the same, but the “spirit of your mind” has changed. It is no longer a mind focused on things of the flesh (Romans 8:5). As Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “When regeneration takes place, a new disposition is put into us, a new principle of life begins to operate. The new spirit enters into the mind and controls it and directs it… in a right direction.” The Spirit of God enables the believer to think in a new way. He gives peace where there was chaos as you bring your thoughts captive to Him!
Today, pray for this nation’s citizens and public servants, people who need the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Today’s Verse: Ephesians 4:23
and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: Ephesians 4:17-29
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
