Paul begins chapter four of Ephesians by saying, “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as [a]the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind” (Eph. 4:17). Powerful in that Paul is commanding that a person must stop acting like they have been all their lives. Stop being who you are now, and start being who God has made you to be. • Stop being like everyone else around you. • Stop being imitating your neighbors. • Stop imitating society.
If we understand the real implication – Paul is saying, you have to stop being you! Paul goes on (v.19) saying, “having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;” (Eph. 4:18). Left to our own thinking—to our own way—to our own natural minds—we are in the dark, and ignorant of the way of God. Until we move our minds up to the standard of God’s word—we will be walking in darkness, alienated from the life of God, blinded to what is right and good and true.
Three things that will shape our lives beginning with: (1) “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” (v.22), (2) “and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” (v.23) and (3) “and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (v.24).
Throughout this lesson we must understand that “The truth is in Jesus” and if the truth is in Jesus, then it cannot be in the world. If the truth is in Jesus, then it is not in your mind. Keep in mind these two verses from Isaiah “8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9). Unless we conform our minds, our ways to the Spirit by the word of God—our thinking is false—futile, darkened and ignorant because of blindness. . .