Heat is off & computer problems 🙂 The process of putting off...

Ephesians 4: 22 - 24

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.

Here in chapter 4 of Ephesians Paul is addressing how to live a Christian life in this world.

This was the problem in the 1st century and this is still the problem in our century.

 The world tells us to express yourself. To live your life in a way that makes you happy. Achieve all you can and enjoy yourself.

And we can see by our society what the end results of this approach is…

The answer of religion in general, even faiths besides Christianity, is: "Try your best to do what is right. If your struggling, you need to try harder.

But this will never work, because the self that tries is the very self that is causing the problem.

Which is why those who attempt to solve the pressures and demands of life by “trying harder” most oftentimes, find themselves caught up in a vicious cycle of hopelessness.

They set out to do it but find themselves unable to accomplish it and the cycle continues.

But Scripture has a different answer. We will never begin to understand authentic Christianity unless (or until) we see this... The answer of Christianity is a personal experience of a living Lord, to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as a Person; to enter into a personal relationship with Him, and to learn to let Him live his life through you.

The Christian message is not saying, "try better, try harder, do your best to live a good life."

If anyone thinks that, they have misunderstood the whole point of Christianity.

I know that for many this is difficult to grasp. And to many, it may seem that this is advocating passiveness and that Christians are being exhorted to sit and wait, to put their minds in neutral and wait for God to do something.

Unfortunately, Christians, when trying to teach this (letting go and letting God), have often given that impression, that we must sit back and wait and God will do everything, and we don't have to do anything.

And yes, scripture is clear that, "we, in ourselves, can do nothing," (John 15:5).

You see, we do not add to God's working, but that does not mean that we don’t have a part in it.

This is not some kind of magical neutrality where we simply are waiting for God to do everything.

As Paul makes clear in our scripture verses for today.

That the principle by which the Christian life is lived involves the will, and the continual exercise of the human will.... As we’re told, "Put off the old, and put on the new," (If we are putting off and putting on something, then we are doing something.)

This is a process… which is to reject the attractiveness and the demands from the old life and act instead on the wonderful possibilities of the new life that we have been given in Jesus Christ.

This is something that must go on repeatedly. That is why the Christian life is called a walk, because it is two steps repeated again and again.

So, how do we walk? Well, you put one leg in front of the other. Then you put the other leg ahead of that one.

You have now utilized both the parts of your body that is designed for walking.

But you don’t stop there… otherwise that isn’t walking…

You take another step and another… again and again…

This is the process of putting off… (that is one step) and putting on (that is the other). And the whole life is to be lived by the continual exercise of this principle. And that’s why God’s Word tells us in Galatians 5:16, "Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh,"

The Christian faith never intended to merely get us involved in religious activity. There is nothing God dislikes more than religion. He is interested in life. In your life and in mine… True, life does have religious aspects… but religion alone is empty.