Renewal in the Spirit

(Ephesians 4:22-24)

At the most basic level, Christianity is about change. We are called to change from the old manner of life driven by sin and the passions and lusts of human nature, to be changed into the image of Jesus Christ.

We are being called to a renewal in the Spirit so that our thoughts, our actions and our desires match those of the Lord, because our desire is to please Him and not ourselves.

Renewal in the Spirit is critical, as this scripture today points out. But the burning question is: How do we do it?

What is Renewal in the Spirit?

This scripture gives us a good idea of what it means to be renewed in the spirit. It tells us what we are to seek to be renewed in the spirit is Jesus Christ.

22 Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)

Firstly, we are told that to be renewed in the Spirit requires us to “…put off your old nature…”

Our old nature is corrupt because all of mankind suffers the weaknesses of sin. Every person that has ever lived on this earth, (except Jesus Christ), has been subject to the power of sin. As Paul points out in the following verse:

“…since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)

All people have sinned and thus they have fallen short of the glory of God. No man has ever or can ever come up to the standard of perfection required by God because of the effects of sin in our lives.

And Jesus has made it abundantly clear that we MUST be perfect if we are to live with God into eternity. This is not a “nice to have” situation, it is a critical and essential requirement of God that we be perfect, as we see in Matthew 5, verse 48.

You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

So we see that we MUST become perfect, just as God is perfect, because He cannot live with the imperfections of mankind caused by sin.

Now before you throw your hands up in the air and claim it is too hard or impossible, remember that God WANTS people to come to Him, and He WANTS people to live with Him. So if He wants these things to happen, then He must have made a way for it to be possible to be perfect as He is perfect.

This is what being renewed in the Spirit is all about. It’s not just about getting rid of sin but also getting rid of all those other imperfections that are NOT sin, but left unchecked can lead to sin.

Let me give you a couple of examples. The Bible tells us in different places that God is a jealous God, and that God can be an angry God when people do the wrong thing.

Now if God can be angry and jealous, then anger and jealousy by themselves are NOT sins. They are emotions within man and they were certainly emotions expressed by God.

But the issue arises from what we do as a result of things like anger and jealousy. These feelings may not be sin, but if they are not controlled they can very quickly lead to sin.

For example, Cain was jealous and angry at his brother Abel because God accepted Abel’s offering but did not accept Cain’s. At that point no sin had occurred, and God took the time to give a warning to able not to let his jealousy take hold and cause him to sin. Note these words:

“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:7)

Cain was upset but he had not sinned at that point. He was jealous and angry but had not sinned and God warned him that sin could easily overtake him if he did not master it. What Cain had to do was to master and take control of these emotions so that he did not then commit a sin.

Unfortunately, as the Bible tells us, Cain did not master those emotions and he led his brother Abel out into the field and murdered him in cold blood. It was at that point that his desires and his emotions led him to sin.

Cain was unable to control his passions, lusts, emotions and desires and he sinned. And all of mankind ever since has had the same problems as Cain had. No-one has been able to completely control these desires and, as God told Cain, sin is still couching at the door waiting to overtake you and destroy you if you cannot control these things.

So again the important question to answer is: How do we remove sin and control those evil passions, lusts, emotions and desires that lead us to sin?

Freedom in Jesus Christ

If we are to live with Christ Jesus and God the Father in their eternal kingdom, we must be perfect as God is perfect, and we must be renewed in our hearts and minds and spirit. This is what we have seen from the information above.

The first step of this process occurs when we come to Christ and we receive his free gifts, which we get through faith and through following what He told us to do.

First, we repent. We appeal to God through repentance recognising that we cannot change ourselves and we desire to have His help to transform us. Repentance literally means to “change your mind” or better still, “change your thinking.”

Repentance is the first step. By repenting we are appealing to God for the renewal in the spirit that is essential if we are to be perfected in Him.

The second part is that we are to be baptised into the death of Jesus Christ. We must believe and be baptised in His name so that we can enter His death and resurrection, taking them on as our own, so that we die to sin and die to the laws of Moses.

Why do we have to die? Because the payment for the debt of sin we build up in our life can only be paid by dying. Even under the laws of Moses the people could not receive forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood of goats, bulls or lambs. Death is the penalty for sinning, and when we die the debt is paid.

But by taking on the death of Jesus as our own, His death replaces our own and pays the debt of sin on our behalf. All of our sins are removed and we are set free from our sin as a free gift from God.

However, the baptism and death of Christ goes further because we are also set free from the laws of Moses in Jesus’ death.

We are told that the law is binding on a person only while they are alive. The law does not pass through death, but when a person dies they are set free from the law.

Why is it important to be set free from the law? Because it is the law that condemns a person as a sinner. So if we were to remain under the law after being baptised, and if we then broke the law, we would once again be condemned as sinners, and either Jesus would have to die again, just as the Israelites had to offer sacrifices every year for their sins, or we would have to be baptised every time we sinned.

By removing the law, sin is removed into the future and condemnation lies dead. There is no longer any condemnation for those who have died with Christ Jesus through baptism, as Romans chapter 8, verse 1 tells us.

Finally, in setting us free from sin and from the law, God grants us the free gift of righteousness through faith when we believe that He has indeed set us free by the death of Jesus Christ.

So in the baptism into the death of Jesus Christ we are set up to begin our walk in Christ that will lead us to His kingdom. We are now considered to be perfect in God’s eyes through the faith we have in Jesus and the freedom God gives us by grace.

But there is still a long way to go. We may well be perfect and righteous by the gift of God through faith, but our passions, lusts, emotions and desires still remain unchecked. We are no better off than we were before coming to Christ in these regards because our human failings still drive our thoughts and actions.

So God has provided the means by which we can overcome these as well, so that we can be truly “perfect as you heavenly Father is perfect.”

Receive and Walk in the Spirit

To be completely renewed in the spirit is not something we are able to do alone. We must have the support and working of God in our lives if we are to be made perfect.

He achieved this by giving us the Holy Spirit as a gift to work with, in and on us every day.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ and thus into the perfect image of the Father.

So it is necessary for every Christian to first receive the Holy Spirit, and then know how to use the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the passions, lusts and desires of the flesh by walking in the Spirit.

Walking in the Spirit is not a hard thing to do, but it is the only way that we receive the power from God through the Holy Spirit to overcome the passions of the flesh. It is too long a process to go into in this post, but I have written about walking in the Spirit numerous times in this blog and there are links below this article to other posts if you want to learn more.

The most crucial aspect of this however, is that you receive the Holy Spirit in the first place.

There are many false and wrong teachings in the church today about receiving the Holy Spirit, so it is important you listen to what the scripture says.

For example, some people believe you receive the Holy Spirit when you first believe. Other believe you receive the Holy Spirit when you are first baptised. Again some people believe the Holy Spirit is a force like the wind rather than a spiritual being, and there are others, many in fact, who believe that the Holy Spirit is God. There are people who believe some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially speaking in tongues, was only for the early church and is no longer relevant today.

All of these teachings and beliefs are wrong and have no basis in the scripture.

Without going into great detail, it is important that every Christian receives the Holy Spirit according to the processes laid down in the Bible so that He can do the work to remove your passions, lusts and desires.

This how the complete renewal in the Spirit is achieved: by the working of the Holy Spirit. So seek to receive the Holy Spirit and learn how to walk in the Spirit. If you need to know more, check out the links below, or download my free eBook, “The Six Foundations of Christianity,” which discusses all of these issues and more in much greater detail.

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