Ephesians 4:22-24

That teaching stressed that you should take off your former lifestyle, the old humanity. That way of life is decaying, as a result of deceitful lusts.

Instead, you must be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and you must put on the new humanity, which is being created the way God intended it, displaying justice and genuine holiness.

I like Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on this passage so much, that I want to share a paragraph of his with you verbatim:

This was Paul’s argument—you no longer belong to the old corruption of sin; you belong to the new creation in Christ. Take off the graveclothes! How do we do this? “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Conversion is a crisis that leads to a process. Through Christ, once and for all, we have been given a new position in His new creation, but day by day, we must by faith appropriate what He has given us. The Word of God renews the mind as we surrender our all to Him. “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). As the mind understands the truth of God’s Word, it is gradually transformed by the Spirit, and this renewal leads to a changed life. Physically, you are what you eat, but spiritually, you are what you think. “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). This is why it is important for us as Christians to spend time daily meditating on the Word, praying, and fellowshipping with Christ.

I just love the practicality here.

We need to appropriate daily what God has given us. And there is a way to do that.

I’ve often thought how we need a fitness center for the mind. We’re taught so little towards this in our modern day American Christianity—at least in my experience of it. This is where Buddhists put us Christians to shame much of the time. They have a path very well laid out for reducing suffering and reaching nirvana. If you go to a Buddhist meditation center, you’ll be taught how to train your mind and truly change how you see the world.

A Christian conversion experience will also give you a radical shift in perspective, but why do we tend to stop there? Slowly, the world’s ways of seeing creep back.

Unless we train. Unless we appropriate. Unless we spend quality time with God, daily.

Listening.

Absorbing.

Soaking.

A sponge isn’t the ocean, but it can be completely drenched with ocean….if soaked in it.