It is an incredible reality that we can have different lives than we are currently experiencing. Because the Holy Spirit has made a home within us, we can walk in new life. This new life has peace and power wrapped into it. But, sadly most Christians live in their old life, through living in their old thinking and old ways of responding to circumstances. Living as dead though they are alive with the Holy Spirit’s power, many Christians shuffle along just trying to get by. I know that I have many shuffle along days myself. Why? Because I forget that the Holy Spirit is the power source within me, and when I forget I live dependent on myself…that’s why. And, in myself, if I don’t “feel” like doing something, I won’t. And, if I don’t “feel” I have the energy I need to complete a task, I will just push it to the side…waiting for the time when I am “feeling” like I want to do it.
Sadly what most of us aren’t taught is that the Christian woman needs ” reprogramming” in terms of thinking and feelings. Life in Christ is a radical reorientation. It’s not that we shouldn’t “feel” because God created us as people who do think and feel. But, we are to no longer live if the smallness of “self” and just our way of thinking.
Listen to what Paul, INSISTED on:
“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of thier hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” Ephesians 4:17-19
Futility: in the original Greek is a word that means…’what is devoid of truth and appropriateness’.
Thinking: is speaking of our mind.
Paul was insisting that we no longer live devoid of truth in our mind. This goes along with Romans 12:1-2, which says we are to be changed or transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Today, I am encouraging you, as I challenge myself, to go to the Lord Jesus, with this verse in Ephesians, asking God to help me understand why it was so important that Paul insisted on it! Asking God to fill my mind with truth, so that I will be able to live the life that God has empowered me to live.
I am challenging you to pay attention to how you live and respond. Ask yourself if the way you habitually live is according to trust in Christ and His power, or in what you are accustomed to living in within your “self”.
Live Up today! Under the Promise of Truth, Love, and the Faithfulness of His Power to move us onward.
Debbie
