To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Col 1:27

     A most awesome reality is that you are now blessed with a new spiritual nature. It is the nature of God residing and indwelling within you. Happily, you have decided to make Jesus Christ your Lord (that means your master). He is now the head of your life. But there is a wrinkle, a remnant of imperfection from the fall. It's your mind. How do you deal with what is sometimes the creepy ilk of your mind? Your new spirit is perfect. Your flesh (soul life), the part that contains your mind, unfortunately is not. Only Jesus Christ walked a perfect walk with the Father. Only Jesus Christ had a perfectly renewed mind, always doing the Father’s will. His attitude was as follows.

   We wish to become fashioned in the likeness of our blessed Lord and savior more and more,  day by day. He consciously, with determination made His Father’s will his own will. Do we continue down the same path of disillusion and bewilderment by continuing to live life our own way? Or, do we put all of our trust in Him—in everything? It is the love of God that leads men to repentance.   

   Without doubt, one can be saved and remain miserable. Some of the meanest people on earth are Christians. That’s right—we said it. Let us repeat ourselves. A “born again” Christian can continue being nasty; the same cheating, backbiting, lying, lazy, selfish, overindulgent person he was before he got saved. Fortunately for all of us, there is great mercy and grace.

   Here is our point. Newness of life occurs when we make him Lord. Our Master. Our desire and our heart becomes established and set upon him; our affections are in and for him. We surrender our life to Christ and we agree with God. In newness of life and what emerges is an inspired and encouraged walk by the spirit. We don't really change ourselves; His love changes us.

 Casting down imaginations, [sense knowledge reasoning] and every high [false] thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ

 2 Cor  10:5

   The first time I heard this verse I claimed out loud, “No way. I can’t bring every thought captive to him. It’s impossible.” Yet God instructs us to be like Christ. You agree, I’m sure with the following:

We are ultimately going to join our brother in the heavenlies. Without question, we will have a new nature—that natures will not be in part.

This is where God is leading us. To be like Christ.

   This “new man,” this new creation within you, which God has created, has the Spirit of God within. It is all in all. The spirit which God gives to you is not an earthly bodily organ like your heart or kidney. It fills all and all. It makes you completely complete in Him. The Creator gifts you inherent spiritual power. Whether you utilize that power or not, is completely up to you. There is only one requirement: faith. One. You must believe. You must believe that what He has instructed in His Word is true. You must believe that you are now who He says you are, and not what the world of men (by way of that accuser, Satan), declares you are. You are now what God says you are!

   Here is the temporal rub. Last we heard, your mind still harbors the old memories and thought patterns left over from the old nature (the worldly nature). Certainly, here is a challenge. We are to reckon the “old man” dead. Reckon means to account or regard a situation settled. He’s dead. Period. Wish him a fond farewell.

We are allowing our minds to replace the ideas and thoughts of the world and men with the ideas and thoughts of God. We are to imitate the master, Jesus Christ.

   To be transformed is to be changed—or transfigured, and that is by way of the renewing, or renovation of your mind. A complete change for the better. Our new form is spiritual, and our new nature, is one that God is providing for us. We’re excited to become used to its goodness and wholeness.

One new man fashioned in his likeness.

   Now we realize that when there is a bad memory, we cannot always erase it from our minds, however, we replace the old with the new and those less pleasing events of the past finally fade as time passes. We’re also quite sure that it is available for God to completely erase something that needs to be gone. God can and does heal to the uttermost. Either way, in the process, we become more like him and take on the heavenly nature of God. We put away the things of the world: lying, cheating , stealing, corrupt communication (we could go on all day), and we begin to exhibit the fruit of the spirit, which is: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. We become like him. That is why we replace the old memories and ideas, with the words that God has provided for us. The words of life. The words that protect and guide us.

   By Godly design, you and I have been fully equipped. In Ephesians 6:13, God instructs us to take unto ourselves the whole (complete) armor of God. No soldier would ever consider going to battle without his gear. Without preparing. So why would we? We are in a war, spiritual in nature—deadly and physical in its consequences. The sword of the spirit is the Word of God. As we put the words of God into our mind, we flood our minds with light. Remember, the Word is quick (alive), and powerful. The light of God’s Word drives the darkness out!

   The living Word is not simply words spoken, but instead words he speaks now! So much so that we are to replace the words of our mind with the words of God. Thus, we renew our mind with the newness of God’s creation is us. We come to God ablaze with thankfulness and the desire to serve Him. We are ready and willing to bury the old life, and with it, the “old man”.

   More than anything else Christ is the head of the body. Christ is the head of the church. We abound in our excitement in serving him as the head of the body.

   It pleased God to make Jesus Christ the head of His Church, and  ultimately every knee will bow to him. Jesus Christ made his purpose in life, to do his Father’s will. He committed himself to doing what his Father asked him to do. We too can choose to walk with newness of life.

   Yes! That means every name. Every disease and sickness, frailty and fear. However, we have a bit of work to do. Work. Not works, (as in you can make your life better yourself.) We are saying very simply and plainly that you now have the opportunity to serve just like Jesus Christ! Some teach that all that power to operate like Christ died when the apostles died. That he gave it to them and no one else. Is there some real reason why the apostles could walk with the power and authority that Jesus conveyed to them, and we cannot? No! The only reason we don’t (if we don’t), is that we don’t believe that we can. Some idea or somebody has talked us out of it. Why not clear any obstacles or doctrine or theology or previous ideas that clutters the way to us walking as the spiritual men and women we desire to be. The Word of God is our sole basis for truth. Certainly, you wish to be guided by the holy spirit in prayer, and meditation upon the Word of God, however, that guidance will never be at cross purposes with the Word of God. Never. The supreme authority of truth is the Bible and not men.

   Climb into your bulldozer (spiritually speaking) and clear the path of any idea—any high [false] things that exalt themselves against the promises of God. Bury them forever. Either the following verse is true—or it is not. This is what God intends for us. Nothing less.

   You can do the things that Jesus Christ did and more. Someone’s always jumping up at this point and saying, “That can’t be true!” Well, I’ll give you examples of two things that Christ could not do, and you can do.

·       You can lead a man or woman into the new birth. This was not possible for Jesus because it wasn’t yet available. Not until the day of Pentecost.

        You may speak in tongues, and he could not. It is one of nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit and was only made available after the day of Pentecost.

   The encouragement here is that we may be able to walk with all that his death and resurrection have made available for us. The purpose, is that we may serve God by serving mankind the bread of life. In newness of life, as Christ did.

   Because you are born again, saved and filled with the power of God will you do everything perfectly? No! Rejoice anyway; you will grow up into him, the fullness that fills all and all. In Romans 6:3, Paul states we are "baptized unto death" meaning that we are not only dead to our former ways, but they are buried. To return to them is as unthinkable as it is for one to dig up a dead corpse. Halleluiah, we’re a new creation in him. Praise God! Thanks to Jesus Christ.

   We are to allow the Spirit of God to have preeminence in our lives. He will not do it for us; we must let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus.

  As we allow the Spirit of God to enliven our thinking, the “old man” falls by the wayside and we exhibit the love of God in the renewed mind. After all, it is by wayof the goodness of God, who first loved us and gave His son for us, that newness of life takes place and we rejoice in the love of God.

In His love,

Tony