In 2017, I wrote a book called Renewed: How Jesus Transforms Your Mind. This is part of a series of articles based on that book’s content. Hope you find them helpful.
Emptying the house isn’t enough. The new self has to be nourished.
“Our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). That inner self is the new you, born the day you were saved. We’ve talked about putting out the old; now we have to talk about feeding the new — because you can’t simply cast out the old and expect the new self to fill the empty space automatically. And note this: denying the old self is itself the work of the new self. The old self will never volunteer to deny itself.
Your new self still looks like you. You won’t see a new face in the mirror; you carry the same memories and knowledge. Which is exactly why the new self needs an intentional introduction. At my ten-year class reunion, everyone slid right back into their old roles — and I sat there desperate for someone to notice God had made me a different man. The natural course of things never gives your new self a coming-out party. It has to be displayed on purpose. That’s why Colossians opens with directives: “Seek the things that are above… Set your minds on things that are above” (3:1-2). Getting to know the new self begins by resetting the focus of the mind.
Someone will hear all this talk of work and worry it sounds like earning your salvation. It’s the difference between getting saved and living saved — between salvation and sanctification. No works save you, and no works keep you saved; Jesus did that heavy lifting on the cross. But living saved takes work, and if you really love him, it’s work you’ll gladly do: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).
Here’s the secret. If you set out on your own steam to put off the old and put on the new, you’ll collapse from fatigue. But if you wait on the Holy Spirit to instruct and empower you, his power sustains the effort. About ninety percent of your instruction is already written in the Word. The other ten percent comes through listening — and there are three kinds.
Listening in the moment
Train yourself to pray before you process. Our minds are pre-programmed to evaluate and react instantly; the discipline of unceasing prayer is learning to filter what you see through a running conversation with the Spirit before you draw conclusions. And when life demands a split-second response, the Word you’ve been storing up is the ammunition the Spirit uses.
Listening in prayer
Through bad modeling we’ve learned to monologue at God. He does want us to talk — to praise, confess, and ask — but he also says, “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7). Stillness gives him room to speak. My favorite picture of the alternative is from The Incredibles: the villain captures the hero, then can’t resist a long, gloating speech — “You sly dog, you got me monologuing!” We’re often like the villain, too wrapped up in our own monologue to hear the Spirit get a word in.
Listening to the Body
This one takes the most discernment, because the Spirit lives in every believer and can speak through any of them. We get testy when correction comes from the “wrong” person. But test what you hear: if it’s from the Lord, it will agree with Scripture and bear witness with the Spirit within you (1 John 4:1). Years ago a man, a man I barely knew prayed over me, looked me in the eyes, and spoke a word that I didn’t understand completely. He said I would have children hanging from my arms. While I didn’t understand it, I was moved by his prayer. Time passed, and I forgot about it for a while. But that next summer, I was serving as a summer missionary at a boy’s ranch in Oklahoma, playing in the pool, roughhousing with kids literally hanging off my arms, and at that moment, I remembered, and I understood God had spoken to me through someone else. Often, that’s how he works.
How do you know you’re making progress? Colossians 3:12-17 gives the barometers: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and above all, love. We don’t grow in these evenly — some grow together, others ripen in their own seasons — but the goal is that all of them increase over time. Just be sure you’re comparing yourself to the right manifest. On the show Lost, survivors didn’t realize impostors were among them until someone found the passenger list. Until you measure yourself against Jesus — not against flawed human models — your self-assessment will be off. Imitate faithful people only as they imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1); they’re works in progress too.
Finally, the new self doesn’t just stay healthy — it’s meant to flourish. A lone tree on the prairie can be perfectly healthy and still not flourish, because flourishing is a vigorous, multiplying existence, and that only happens in good soil. The new self flourishes only in community within the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 2:10), which is why we’re told not to neglect meeting together (Hebrews 10:24-25). I’ve known church hurt; I’ve wanted to just do Jesus on my own. But isolation reduces you. Put on your new self, nourish it, and plant it in the fertile soil of the church, where you’ll do more than endure — you’ll flourish.
