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Makin' Me New

Spoiler Alert: Jesus isn't something we just add to our life. He's not someone who adapts to our life. When we become a follower of Christ we lay our old life down and find our new life in Him. Through redemption we go from a life based on conforming to the way we see the world around us to being transformed by what Jesus is doing in us. God begins to change us from the inside, out — from internal to external

This transformation starts in our mind. As our thoughts shift, our desires turn into godly desires. And then Jesus begins to transform our will or actions. We begin to think like Jesus, then we begin to want what Jesus wants, so naturally we begin to act the way Jesus acts. As this transformation progresses, we sin less frequently and spend more time and resources investing in God's kingdom. Unfortunately, many times we fail to understand HOW Jesus transforms our will and actions and it blocks Him from really doing a transformative work in our lives. This happens when we rely on human wisdom and human willpower as primary methods for combating sin.

Think of the many areas of impurity across the church and among Christians in our culture. Pornography, adultery, gluttony, materialism, idolatry, greed, rage, drunkenness, pride and so on. Before any of these things become actions, they are thoughts and those thoughts determine our desires and then our desires manifest in actions. Then our response is to the action — to the symptom, not to the root of the problem. We say, 'Stop doing that, Don't spend so much time online, don't watch those shows, stay away from the bars, sell some of your stuff, cut up your credit cards, find an accountability partner.' And there is nothing wrong with those statements but they are ways to treat the symptoms through willpower and human effort. We fail deal with the core issue: our thoughts.

Sinful actions are always the result of misplaced, unchecked thoughts and desires. Let's break our verse of the day down a bit. Con – formed. "Con" is a prefix that means together/with and "form" means shape or to shape. So the admonition here is to not be joined together with or shaped by the world, but rather be trans – formed by the renewing of our mind. "Trans" literally means through/across which shows us that what goes through and across our minds the most is what ultimately shapes and forms how we think and who we are becoming. This, of course, is a constant process. We are all constantly in process, being made and re-made new everyday! Sing and declare it today "Jesus is 'makin' me new!"