The Spirit Renews our Minds

by Laura Springer, Th.M., Ph.D.

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.

The Spirit Makes Us God’s Dwelling Place

by Laura Springer, Th.M., Ph.D.

Key Passage(s): Ephesians 2:11-22

Supplementary Passage(s): Isaiah 28:16; 1Corinthians 3:10-17

 

God’s dwelling place has never been bricks and mortar. He has always dwelt among his people. But once Jesus came, lived, died, rose, and ascended, something changed: where God once dwelt with his people, he now dwells in us. The community of those who trust Jesus is and is becoming the dwelling place of God.

 

This dwelling place is built on the foundation of the good news of Jesus, written down in the words of Scripture. It is held up by and measured against Jesus himself, for he is the cornerstone (Isaiah 28:16; 1 Corinthians 3:10-17). The Spirit who dwells within us also works in and with us to build us from the inside. So, if a church intends to look and act like God's dwelling place, we who are the church must choose to live by the Spirit, tending our lives toward him, submitting to him, and partnering with him.

 

Tend toward the Spirit. Let us tend toward the Spirit by reminding ourselves that he is God with us, forming us to become the church Jesus saves us to be. Let us remember that the Spirit teaches us Jesus through the Bible and our brothers and sisters. Let us learn Jesus with all that we are in the company of our sisters and brothers in Christ. Let us learn to recognize the Spirit’s voice by slowing down to listen and testing each prompting against the Bible and in conversation with our fellow believers.

 

Submit to the Spirit. Let us submit to the Spirit’s tools and methods and set ours aside. Let us submit to his design for the structure of the whole and for how each individual believer functions in the context of the unity that is in Jesus.

 

Partner with the Spirit. If the dwelling place is to be a sound structure, we who are its living stones must submit to the Designer. Let us partner with the Spirit and one another to develop and live out our calling as the dwelling place of God in the world.

God the Spirit: The One who Makes Us One

by Laura Springer, Th.M., Ph.D.

Key Passages: Ephesians 4:1-6

Supplementary Passages: John 17

For the past several weeks, we have been physically separated. We have been gathering in virtual space, worshiping God, hearing the Word proclaimed, and chatting with one another, but we all know that this is not enough. It makes our hearts hurt. Why?

Separation makes our hearts hurt because to be Christian is to be in a relationship with God, and that relationship always takes place as persons-in-community. The face-to-face gathering is a core practice that lives out our identity in Christ. To neglect or be barred from meeting in person can cause damage, whether it is caused by “Safer at Home” orders or contention.

Now, contention and distance happen; these are part of life under the sun. But these need not, indeed, must not create division. Why? Because our unity is not a feature of our liking one another or enjoying the same things. Our unity, our life together, whether gathered or dispersed, belongs to and is sourced in the Spirit. Our unity is decidedly not our own. It is God’s.

This unity is possible because “There is one body… one Spirit… one hope… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all…” (Ephesians 4:4-6 ESV). We are in Jesus by the Spirit, so we are one.

But we must never let the fact of our unity lull us into complacency, for God calls us to work hard to support this unity by partnering with the Spirit because our unity is actually God’s unity.

Working hard at unity while partnering with the Spirit is how we live a communal life worthy of the call to relationship with God. All believers, not a select few, are responsible for maintaining the unity of the Spirit by working diligently to support what binds us to God and one another.

God designed the gathered church as a physical, face-to-face community. So, gathering on the church campus and in life groups feels right because it is right. Gathering in virtual space feels a bit off. Yet, virtual gatherings are real, for they live out our soul-to-soul relationship with one another and God. Let us allow the experience of our current separation and participation in virtual gatherings to increase our yearning for the face-to-face life in the Spirit of the gathered church.