Key Passage: Ephesians 4:17-24
Humanity is amazing. Just think about it: pyramids, going to the moon, farming, Shakespeare. The list is endless. Yet these accomplishments can feel insufficient. We can enjoy all the fantastic ideas and inventions of humanity, spend lifetimes with friends and family, enjoy nature, and make a lasting contribution yet still feel like there should be more.
The Need. Truth is, without new life in Christ, the human mind is futile. It is burdened by a lifeless soul. It is stretched in too many directions to count. It is pounded by conflicting messages from every side. On top of all that, the human mind is futile because it cannot know anything beyond what it can perceive or conceive. Indeed, apart from Christ, the human mind is both incapable of knowing eternal truth and stubbornly resistant to it.
The Solution. Only life in Christ by the Spirit can fill this need. Christ is life, and all begins with him. The Spirit renews the mind, and his renewing work develops the Christian’s capacity for godly understanding, reasoning, and valuing. He gives us the ability to understand the truth that is in Jesus. He enables us to practice eternal thinking and reasoning. He aligns our values with the values of God, reorienting our minds toward God and the good of the other.
Our Part. Brothers and sisters, futility of mind is not the way we learned Christ. Therefore, let us submit to the Spirit and put on the new self. Let us partner with the Spirit as he carries out his continuing work within us. Let us cooperate with him by engaging Scripture, reasoning through God’s truth and its implications, and orienting our values and responses accordingly. Let us cast off the dead weight of the old self by putting on the new self. Let us counter the constant barrage of conflicting messages by considering the truth he reveals.
As we go forward in the Spirit, let us reject complacency and strive toward what is true and right and good, thinking clearly about God and partnering with the Spirit in the company of our Christian siblings.
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