Monday's Follow-up to Sunday's Message: Action! . . . or not?

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 talk about the kind of person we’d like to be, we almost always talk about actions.  Things that we think we should be doing.  New habits that we believe we should be incorporating into our lives.  New skills we want to acquire. 

And on the days when we decide we’d like to be a better Christian, we naturally tend to think of specific actions that Christians should do.  So when we read a list like the list in Ephesians 4:25-32, we immediately want to stop doing some things and start doing others.  It’s all about the actions.

Now certainly there are actions that belong to the old, sinful self, and there are actions that belong to the new self.  Paul covers that very well in his list in Ephesians.  But the important thing to remember is that we don’t become better Christians by focusing upon ourselves and what we do.  Instead, I simply advise you to focus upon Christ.

The daily cycle of dying and rising—of daily drowning the Old Adam and having the New Man rise up—is a cycle of daily repentance and trust.  As such, the daily cycle of dying and rising would have us look to Christ—always to Christ—for His forgiveness, His indwelling Spirit, and His renewal. 

You see, when we focus upon actions, we’re really focusing upon ourselves.  And that’s too bad, because we will never have the power to change ourselves in the way we’d like.  Wouldn’t it be better to focus upon Christ?