"Renewed in His Image: Putting Off the Old and Put On the New"

April 26, 2025 Daily Devotion: "Renewed in His Image: Putting Off the Old and Put On the New" Ephesians 4:22-24 New Living Translation“Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God— truly righteous and holy." We all have desires. Some desires are healthy and should be pursued. Others are deadly and should be avoided. A desire is a strong feeling that drives us to attain or possesssomething which is, or we think is, within our reach. Evil is the absence of good, that which is sinful, vicious, corrupt, morally wrong and wicked. So obviously, when you put together two words as powerful as evil and desire there is a reaction that is double powerful. The Word of God recognizes the power ofevil desire when it tells us in James 1:13-15, that, "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil nor does He tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he isdragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Therefore, we cannot be tempted without having evil desire already in place. The temptation will have no power without the evil desire. This is a very important point for all of us toremember as we fight temptation. We must deal with the evil desire. Scripture tells us that our body needs to be offered to God as a living sacrifice. This means that we make a conscious decision to no longer offer our body to sin asinstruments of unrighteousness. Our mind needs to be renewed. As we are faithful and diligent to be made new in the attitude of our minds, we will begin to be transformed. We should no longer live according to the sinful nature, having our mind set on what nature desires but have our mind set on what the spirit desires. There is so much life, energy and peace when we train our mind to live according to our new born again spirit. When we successfully learn to do this, the born again spirit acts as asixth sense, tuning us in to God and enabling us to perceive reality from a divine perspective.