Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Living Truth As A New Creation

The body is important, but the mind is all-important. And the most important thing about your mind is what it is fixed upon. . . . The focus of your thoughts significantly affects everything else that happens in your life and evokes the feelings that frame your world and motivate your actions. Thoughts are where we make our first movements toward God and where the divine Spirit begins to direct our will to God and his way. We have the ability and responsibility to keep God present in our minds, and those who do so will make steady progress toward him, for he will respond by making himself known to us” Dallas Willard, Life Without Lack.


The neighbor’s tree is tall and willowy. I do not know the genus or species of the tree. The thing I do know, from observation, is that it loses its leaves gradually. Old leaves fall off as buds form and new leaves redress the branches. The branches are more exposed in the process but the tree is never completely bare. The old is dropping off while the new is coming on. I am fortunate to watch this process beginning late January into February.

It makes me think of Paul’s words: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

When we choose to actively participate in this transformation of taking off the old and putting on the new it can be a bit like the transformation of my neighbor’s tree. The exception is when we choose to follow Jesus we are fully covered in His righteousness while being transformed. This is one of those great mysteries of the kingdom of God I do not fully understand. You and I are wholly covered in His righteousness while being transformed into His righteousness.

Spiritual formation in Christ moves toward a total interchange of our ideas and images for his. . . . And after he has implanted new life from above in us by Word and Spirit, we can (and must) also begin to take initiative in progressively retaking the whole of our thought life for God’s kingdom. His grace will accompany us every step of the way, but it will never permit us to be merely passive in our spiritual formation in Christ” Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart.

The process of taking off the old life and putting on the new life leaves a recognizable change; others begin to notice how different you’ve become. My teacher Nancy Kane says, “You should see a noticeable change every three months.” How are you measuring up? Do others see changes in you?

In his book, Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard writes, “As we first turned away from God in our thoughts, so it is in our thoughts that the first movements toward renovation of the heart occur. Thoughts are the place where we can and must begin to change. There the light of God first begins to move upon us through the word of Christ, and there the divine Spirit begins to direct our will to more and more thoughts that can provide the basis for choosing to realign ourselves with God and his way. The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon.”

Let’s start with the mind and the story you are telling yourself. I talked about this a little in the last blog post. Draw a silhouette of a head. Make a map of your thoughts by jotting inside the drawn head what you are thinking. Add to this throughout the day. I think you might be surprised how often your thoughts are based on lies. I am.

What are your thoughts saying about you, about your life right now, about others and about God? Recently I was sharing with my spiritual director about a struggle I was having with a schedule change to one particular portion of my week – a change that occurred nearly 9 years ago. This one particular addition to my week is a good thing, and as I described it to her I began to recognize it as such. She said to me, “It sounds like you need to find a new way of looking at this.” Before we ended our session I realized I had been seeing this commitment through an unhealthy role I learned as a child. I had been experiencing it as a time to do my duty for others, not from a sincere place, but a place of obligation. A remnant of fear left over from the past resided inside me – a fear I would be lost if I opened myself to this change. My thinking was skewed by a past experience and I had delivered an unhealthy belief into this beautiful opportunity, tainting it and forfeiting joy.

As I prayed and meditated on this the past month, I realized I could choose to see this commitment differently. God gave me a different lens with which to view this commitment. Have you ever looked through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars? Things are small, very small, and not seen in all their glorious detail. I am choosing to let go of my small view, distorted thinking, and allow God to show me a clearer, up close view – changing my thoughts to His way of thinking, from a lie to truth.

Our thoughts most often run on the rails of fear and negativity. When they do, we are looking through the wrong end of the binoculars and focus on ourselves and our situation. When looking through the correct lens our focus is on God; our thoughts are riding on the rails of truth – His Word. Oh I know how hard it can be to leave the ruts of old thinking but we do not do this on our own. Our Lord and Savior takes us by the hand and empowers us on this journey of leaving behind the old and putting on the new.

In 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul tells us, “We demolish arguments and every pretension (a synonym of pretension is artificiality, which is something not true or real) that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every though to make it obedient to Christ.”

The footnote of my NIV Study Bible says this about “every thought . . . obedient to Christ.” “The center of man’s being thus becomes fully subject to the lordship of Christ.”

The NASB Life Principles Bible (Charles Stanley) says this in the footnote: “Paul speaks a great deal about training the mind to think in a way that honors God because the mind is the primary battlefield for spiritual warfare. Remember, what you focus your mind on has lasting ramifications. This is because a thought reaps an action, an action reaps a habit, a habit reaps your character, and your character reaps your destiny. Therefore, we must reject anything that does not honor Christ in our thinking (Phil. 4:8. 9; Col 3:2)”.

Where are your thoughts taking you? Have you spent years, like me, setting up a barrier in your mind against something God has allowed in your life? We’ve taken a look at the stories we tell ourselves, our slant on ourselves, our realities, and God. What are some steps we can take to change the neural pathways in our brains – to get off the rails of “stinkin’ thinkin’”? Let me say this first: We have a responsibility to take action, the Holy Spirit heals and delivers us. We cannot fix ourselves but our willingness to step out in obedience is essential.

Let’s begin with the spiritual disciplines. Adele Ahlberg Calhou, author of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, writes, “A spiritual practice isn’t magic. It won’t change you by itself, but it puts you in a place to partner with the Holy Spirit to become an ever fresh eikōn [likeness] of Jesus.” Here is list of some of the more commonly known spiritual practices. You may do some of these already. You do not need to be doing them all at once, but to choose a new discipline can help you get past going through the motions and truly being transformed.

  • Accountability partner – to be accountable to one who is honest and will point you to Christ – sharing temptations, challenges, problem thoughts, etc.
  • Bible study – to know God better and to recognize the relevancy of the Bible to my life as a disciple of Jesus. Can be done alone and in community.
  • Confession and self-examination – allowing the Holy Spirit to show you weaknesses and faults you need to confess and surrender. This is not for shaming but for freeing and transforming you (Psalm 139:23-24). The baseline for us is the Scriptures. How are you doing in light of the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins, David’s confessions in the Psalms and the rebelliousness of the Israelites? Do you see yourself reflected there?
  • Gratitude – when we live in gratitude our thoughts are turned from circumstances to the Savior.
  • Fasting – denying our cravings for a time in order to seek God.
  • Journaling – a way of reflecting on how you have experienced God’s presence and what He is teaching you. Looking back over old journals one can see patterns in behavior and identify changes.
  • Meditation – to slow down and mull over a passage, to let the passage marinate in your heart, and listening to the Holy Spirit. Through meditation you can gain a greater depth of insight and understanding.
  • Memorization – Adele Ahlberg Calhoun says, “developing a habit of remembering anchors your life in biblical truth.” It is worth the effort to memorize passages.
  • Prayer of lament – to lament is to express great sorrow, sadness or unhappiness. A prayer of lament is bringing your heartache to God – grieving in His presence.
  • Praying Scripture –praying meaningful passages will help shape your thinking.
  • Silence – to let go of the addiction to noise and distraction, and to listen to God.
  • Solitude – making space and time with God away from others. Calhoun describes solitude as a “‘container discipline’ for the practice of the other spiritual disciplines.”
  • Worship – an act of responding to God with our whole being, delighting in God, being fully present to Him, loving and enjoying Him.

That may seem like a long list if you are unfamiliar with spiritual disciplines. There are more. Again you do not do these all at once. Choose one or two and practice them consistently. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you where to begin. You will be less likely to take your relationship with Jesus for granted. I am being challenged by practicing silence and the examen of myself through the lens of love, humility, purity and honesty. It has been challenging and eye opening.

The more you come to know God truly as He is through His Word and time spent in solitude with Him, the more you will love Him, and the more your thoughts will be drawn to Him. When you choose to be vulnerable with God your intimacy with Him will deepen and your trust will increase.



And so we must apply our thinking to and with the Word of God. We must thoughtfully take that Word in, dwell upon it, ponder its meaning, explore its implications – especially as it relates to our own lives. We must seek the Lord by devoting our powers of thinking to understanding the facts and information of the gospel. This is the primary way of focusing our mind on him, setting him before us. When we do so we will be assisted by God’s grace in ways far beyond anything we can understand on our own; and the ideas and images that governed the life of Christ through his thought life will possess us” J. P. Moreland as quoted by Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart.

We must choose change. It doesn’t happen magically. To be changed happens when we put ourselves in a posture to allow change, to show up and to surrender to His Spirit. What’s working for you? Which of the disciplines do you practice? Is there a discipline you have never practiced that you are considering? I would love to hear about how God is working in your life to form you into the likeness of Jesus.