The Second Step
Renewing The
Mind
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God
which is your reasonable service and be not conformed to this world
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind
that ye may prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God
Before Jesus left this world and ascended into the heavens to be seated at the right hand of the Father, He spoke these words to His disciples about the work of Holy Spirit (John 16) and He said:
It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away
the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart
I will send him unto you!
Can you, as a spirit filled believer, even imagine what was going through the minds of the disciples of Jesus when He spoke these words onto them?
That Jesus had to leave them after walking, talking, teaching, preaching, eating and sleeping with them for some 31/2 years, and this when they really still did not understand the meaning of His teachings, His works, or the purpose of them?
But all of these things, and much more, were soon going to be revealed unto them!
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will shew you things to come.
He shall glorify me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you
(Joh 16:12-14)
The renewing of the mind is the most important step that any Christian will take over the course of their walk with God yet it is also perhaps the most ignored of the Pauline doctrines and subsequently the most misunderstood.
Just as Paul had to repent from almost everything that he thought he knew to win Christ the chosen people of God were called to do the same.
The question here is:
Do we renew our minds?
The first thing Paul calls us to do is to present our bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God because it is our "reasonable (rational) service (worship)".
We are to present our bodies as living sacrifices to our Father God just as our Lord Jesus did. We are to deny the desires of our sinful flesh and do our Father's will both individually and collectively as the body of Christ.
The Question Here Is:
How do we administrate this sacrifice? By Not Conforming to "the World"!
Now "the world" in this particular scripture, is not speaking of kosmos (orderly arrangement, that is, decoration; by implication the world (in a wide or narrow sense, including its inhabitants, literally or figuratively [morally]), and it is not speaking of oikoumenē (land, that is, the terrene part of the globe; specifically the Roman empire: - earth, world), it is speaking of an age. (aiōn) (by extension perpetuity (also past); by implication the world; specifically (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future).
As previously stated, I am no theologian and I do not proclaim to be proficient in my understanding of the Jewish Messianic age but I do know enough to know that Jewish thought and Rabbinical teachings on the return of the Messiah do not align with Jesus' teachings.
For example:
It is believed by the Jews that during the messianic era (age) that the Messiah will restore the priesthood to the Temple, and the traditional sacrifices will be reinstated and the return to the golden age of the Jewish people will be complete.
Now we know through the teachings of the new testament that the royal priesthood has changed forever and that because of Jesus's sacrificial offering of His body on the cross sin offerings are no longer required under the law. Yet the Jews, just as their fathers before them, reject the teachings and sacrifice of Jesus Christ and hold tight to that which has passed away.
We also know that albeit there will be a temple in the "new Jerusalem" that will come down from heaven which will be the seat of His kingdom, that is not the final destination according to Christian doctrine, and within that final destination, as written in Rev 21:22, there is no temple because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it!
The points I am attempting to make here are that the new does not agree with the old! (Luke 5:36)
and that we need to renew our minds (repent and become new wine-skins) to know the unspoiled way of Jesus.