Hello, my friends. Welcome back. It is time for the modern mindset. It's time for you and for me to get our minds and our hearts aligned with the truth of God's Word.

We're doing that right now by going through our realities series, looking at truths that exist in the background that God has revealed to us that will enable us to live as people of God in this world.

As we apply these truths, today we're going to look at Ephesians chapter 4 verses 20 through 24. Before we get there, I want to ask you, if you have been impacted by the morning mindset, I would love to hear your story.

Please reach out to me. You can reach me at carry, C-A-R-E-Y, at carry, green, just like the color dot com. I'd love to interact with you.

Today Ephesians 4, 20 through 24, explains to us that as believers in Jesus Christ, we are to get rid of the old stuff that used to be so important to us before we became believers in Jesus Christ.

Beginning in verse 22, it says, put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Friends, this passage highlights for us something that we have a hard time getting our brains around because we tend to equate how we feel and the experiences we have with our own identity.

For example, when we are tempted to do something that we know is wrong like lie or lust or get inappropriate and angry, we assume and label ourselves as such, we say, I'm a lustful person or I'm an angry person or this and that.

We identify ourselves by our temptations and by our sins. When what Paul is telling us here is no, that is all your old self that might have been your identity once.

That was part of your former manner of life and it is corrupt through the deceitful desires that motivated it, but you are not that person anymore.

Look what he says in verses 23 and 24, he says, be renewed in the spirit of your minds. So in other words, think differently about yourself.

Those are not your desires anymore because when you became a believer in Jesus Christ, Jesus, so to speak, injected his Holy Spirit into you and his Holy Spirit created a new self in you.

Look at verse 24, that's what it says, put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So friends pay close attention to what Paul is telling us here.

The Holy Spirit when he came into us created a new you and he's in the process of creating that new you even now as you're listening.

And that new you is created after the likeness of God. So stop for a moment. Can you imagine that in you is an identity that God has formed through his Holy Spirit that looks like God and he gives some details of what that means in true righteousness and holiness.

Alright, so let's go back to that moment of temptation when you're tempted to lust or you're tempted to lie or you're tempted to be angry.

The first thing you need to do is recognize those temptations are not coming from you from your new self, your new identity, your new identities created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

That's the new you and Paul is saying by transforming the way you think you need to put off that old self. So when those temptations come up, you say no, that's not me.

That's not who God's made me to be. I don't want to go there. The real me wants to do what's righteous, what's holy, what's pleasing in God's sight. That's the real me. I'm going to put that on.

And I'm going to let that identity shape how I respond to these temptations. I think a great example of this is imagine that you were trying to interact with a billionaire and you're trying to influence him to do what you want and to do so you offer him a bribe.

Well, that money you're offering is nothing that billionaire needs. He's got all the money he wants. How is he going to be tempted by that pitley little bride?

You see, he knows his identity and is using that identity to shape his response to the temptation. Friends, you and I do that as well when we put on the new self that's created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness and we get rid of the old stuff as a result.

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