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.”
THEME OF THE DAY: THE REPLACEMENT PRINCIPLE. The application of today’s scripture might well be called “the replacement principle.” It comes from the Apostle Paul’s exhortations to “put off your old self” and “put on the new self” which defines an important truth about Christianity.
In living the Christian life, there are two parts. We learn God’s Word, and then we do God’s Word; knowing AND doing is the Christian life. These cannot be separated. The knowing only Christian produces a cold heart void of first love for Christ. The doing only Christian is a religionist merely adhering to the externals of Christianity.
The same applies in the replacement principle. It, too, consists of two parts. We put off our old life and put on the new life in Christ. Both are necessary. If we just put off the old without putting on the new, we are moralists. If we attempt to put on the new without putting off the old, we will be hypocrites professing one thing (the new) but still enslaved to the old (sinful self). So that is the replacement principle explained. Let’s see how it is put into action. Here is the entirety of the text revealing both sides of the principle and the bridge between them serving as the application – 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 (Ephesians 4:20-24).
Do we see the bridge? It is the mind or as Paul writes, “the renewal of the mind.” In a practical way, it is conditioning our minds by the Word of God, reminding ourselves what happened when we became Christians; we died with Christ, and rose with Christ. We find this explained in the letter to the Romans – For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:5-11).
So, to live the Christian life, daily apply the replacement principle by telling ourselves over and over – “I am dead with Christ, able to put off my old self, and I am alive with the risen Christ enabled to put on my new self, Christ in me.” Do this regularly and we will be living the Christian life as God intends – Christ in us and through us for His glory!
PRAYER: “Father, may I renew my mind with Your truth that I might conform to Your Son, the Truth.”
QUOTE: “How we think determines how we live so what occupies our mind reveals what we are.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim