If You Don’t Know, Now You Know

Ephesians 4:17-24

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

God has so many good plans for every Christian’s life. Part of that plan is that we live our life apart from sin. Paul addressed the idea that Christians can live their lives like the Gentiles (those people who live yielded to sin). He lists key areas of our life that will be affected by a life of sin—Our thinking becomes futile, our understanding becomes darkened, our sensitivity to holiness decreases and our ability to be satisfied dies—all this produces a life that is separated from God.

Paul calls this “the Old Self.” These qualities were part of the old you—before you came to know Jesus. Now that you know Jesus its time to put on the New Self. The new-opposite-sin-life that produces fertile thinking, enlightens our understanding, increases our sensitivity to God’s holiness and brings total satisfaction—a life connected to God!

If you didn’t know that God wants you to live a life free from sin, well, now you know. But don’t worry if this seems like a huge thing to do on your own. Christ has given us two amazingly powerful tools to overcome sin in our lives.

The first, is His Holy Spirit.

Jesus did not leave us alone to deal with the sin that can easily case us to stumble. Receive and utilize the Holy Spirit’s work in your life.

Second, is reading the Word of God.

Reading and meditating on the Words in the Bible will empower you to live free from sin. The Word of God washes our minds clean from sinful living.

Make a commitment today to put on the New Self.