The Christian life is NOT a journey in which you strive to be more like Jesus on your own terms. He is neither a goal to strive for nor a standard to live by. If this is the case, the Christian life becomes a thousand-mile journey with no end in sight! Then whatever glory you have earned is really your fleshly success, not His glorious accomplishment in you.

The Christian life is the manifestation of your completeness in Christ.

You are complete in Christ the moment you accept Him as your Lord and Saviour. And you can never grow more complete than who you are in Him right now. What matters is not what you can or cannot accomplish for yourself, but what Jesus has done for you. You are already full in Christ, but in order to truly experience this fullness, you must constantly renew your mind in the grace and truth of Jesus.

 

{Be} renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:23-24 (NKJV)

 

Simply put, "being renewed in the spirit of your mind" means believing that Christ will turn you into a completely new way of believing and living.

Right believing leads to right living.

A story was told about a king who was looking for his long-lost brother. After a long search, the lost prince, who had become a beggar, was discovered and returned to the castle. A lavish banquet was given in his honour, but instead of the exquisite fare, he ate from the rubbish bin. Despite the fact that he was a prince, he acted like a beggar. Though his status had been restored, his mind had not yet accepted the fact of his standing. It is the same for believers who have yet to discard their old identity and fully accept their new identity in Christ.

Right believing is not self-introspection [that is, constantly evaluating your feelings and thoughts to determine if you are right with God], but rather renewing your mind by faith in the reality of the gospel [accepting as true that God has taken the initiative to make you right with Him through Christ].

You can't enjoy what you have in Christ if you don't believe who you are in Christ. Many people clearly do not believe this. If they can totally immerse themselves in the truth of their true status and standing in God, they will be able to enjoy all of the blessings that God has generously bestowed upon them (Ephesians 1:3).

Every time your mind is tempted by ideas of anything that does not line with the truth of your life in Christ, you must capture every thought that produces unbelief.

Unbelief is the refusal to see yourself as God sees you.

Your victory or defeat in the Christian life is primarily determined by how and what you think about your new identity in Christ! When you choose to walk in unbelief, you choose to reject God's gift of grace.

Doubt, worry, and uncertainty will result from an unbelieving heart.

The remedy is to repent.

Repentance is a positive thing.

The Greek word for “repentance” is metanoia, which means “a complete change of thinking upon knowing the truth”. Repentance, in other words, restores you to the truth of the gospel, to who you are and what you have in Christ.

Every word of God's grace is always accompanied by a call to repentance.

Repentance entails continually renewing your mind with what the gospel says about your life in Christ. Repentance restores your true identity. It liberates you from any unworthy conceptions about yourself by allowing you to believe accurately every truth about God's gracious thoughts of you. In other words, repentance is the right believing that results in the right living.