When you believed in Christ, you were born again. Your old man—your sinful nature—was reborn in God’s righteousness and holiness (2 Corinthians 5:21). It was not a partial rebirth. It was complete, thorough, and finished. Your spirit was born of God’s perfect Spirit (John 3:6).
If old things have passed away and all things are now new (2 Corinthians 5:17), why don’t you feel new? Why haven’t your thoughts changed? When you look into the mirror, you see your failures and your sins. You don’t see the new person who God says you are. But when God sees you, He sees the righteousness of His Son. When you look into the mirror of God’s Word, you begin to see how God sees you. You read the truth of the new person you are. You read the virtue and the characteristics that confirm you are a new person in Christ.
Do you want to know this new creation you are in Christ? Do want to live the righteousness He has given you?
Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
—Ephesians 3:23-24 NKJV
You have to meet this new person Christ has made you. Your mind must be renewed by the truth of the new person you are. You must constantly put on your new identity by being renewed in your mind with God’s truth (Romans 12:2). As your understanding conforms to God’s truth, your fleshly (carnal) mind is convicted by the righteousness you have received in your born-again spirit (John 3:6, 16:8-10). Your thoughts begin to align with God’s Word until you are convinced that your old nature is crucified with Christ.
And then…
You have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.
—Colossians 3:9-10 NKJV
When you are convinced of the new person Christ has made you—when you are convinced in your mind that you are chosen, blameless, and without fault in God’s eyes (Ephesians 1:4-7), you begin to live His righteousness that is yours. You put on the new person you are in His love. Your character reveals the truth of the new person you are in Christ.
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
—Colossians 3:12-17 NKJV
Do you want to live these things which are real for you? God desires you to live these truths. You live what you believe. Learn who you are in Christ, and choose to believe it. Put off the old man, and put on your new man created in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
—Romans 12:2 NKJV)
Let the Word of Christ dwell richly in you. Don’t conform to what your old man says. He is dead. All things are new. Put on your new man.
© 2022 Lynn Lacher
www.lynnlacher.com/2022/03/put-on-your-new-man.html
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