Rom 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
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Today we are called upon by the Spirit of God to leave the old life, the sinful life, the carnal life. We are a new creation now. We are called upon to stop being ruled by this world’s order. We are called upon to stop being ruled by the flesh. We are called upon to no longer be conformed to this world, but live the new life in Christ. We are called upon to experience the grand purpose and will of God for creating this earth, and be active in carrying out His plans in the earth.
The new man is a new creation. He is a new man growing into perfection or becoming perfect or mature in Christ. The believer still has to deal with sin and sometimes miss the mark of his calling. He still falls short of the glory of God even though he is growing in Christ likeness and is the subject of the progressive sanctification of the Holy Spirit. The believer is being transfigured (by the word of God and the Holy Spirit of God) into the image of the Lord Jesus the Christ from glory to glory. II Cor. 3:18 KJV: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Romans 7 reveals that sin still remains in the reach of the believer’s mind but the believer is no longer a slave to sin or is bound by sin. Slavery to the life of sin is broken through the death of our Lord Jesus the Christ. But Romans 6, Ephesians 4, and Colossians 3 reveal the struggle in the heart of the believer… the wrestling that is faced from day to day. Struggles we win, if we apply or submit to the word of God and solicit the help of the Holy Spirit in the fight to keep our new life.
When we fail to walk in faith and “consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”, we miss the reality of living life in the New Creation by faith. Thus we miss the purpose of God for the New Life. Repent! Repent! And get right back up in faith and follow the word and the Spirit of God. Know that you love the Lord. Know that you are called to live the life of Christ, the New Life, in the earth.
How do we cross over into the New Creation? Look at our text. We are to be “transformed by the renewing of our mind”. We get a new mind, a new standard for living from the “word” of God. It comes with what you put into your mind and heart from the word, the Holy Bible. We are to “be … transformed by the renewing of [our] mind…”
You cannot renew your own mind. God has to do it through the work of the word and the Holy Spirit in you. David cried in the Old Testament: Ps 51:10, 11 “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.”
New Creation
Renewing your mind by… Ezek 18:31, “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit:” Then in Ezek 36:26, 27 “A new heart also will I give you (says the Lord), and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
Renew your mind by Rom 13:14: “… put[ing] ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” And in Eph 4:22-24 “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Renew your mind: Titus 3:5 “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost…”
We have a new standard for living now. We have a new life to submit to. God has done the work through His word. He has spoken and manifested His word in the earth in us. Our focus is on the New Life in Christ.
We, therefore: 1) Live our New Life in Christ by faith now; 2) Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; 3) Walk according to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and are free from the law of sin and death; 4) Allow the righteousness of the law to be fulfilled in us through faith, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; 5) We no longer are after the flesh nor do we mind the things of the flesh; but are after the Spirit and the things of the Spirit; 6) Our focus is on Christ living in us; and if He lives in us the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness; 7) We yield to the quickening power of God who quickens our mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in us (Romans 8).
This is our standard now. We are to commit these to our new heart and new spirit and live out God’s plan for us in His New Creation.
The word is God and when we believe the word and act on the word we set in motion the will of God for us today.