Archaic living or New living?

Scripture:

Romans 12:1-2 (TM) So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. (2) Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Observation:

God has good, pleasing, and perfect plans for his children. He wants us to be transformed people with renewed minds, living to honor and obey him. Because he wants only what is best for us, and because he gave his Son to make our new life possible, we should joyfully give ourselves as living sacrifices for his service.

Paul warned Christians: "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world" that are usually selfish and often corrupting. Wise Christians decide that much worldly behavior is off-limits for them. Our refusal to conform to this world's values, however, must go even deeper than just behavior and customs; it must be firmly planted in our mind: "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think." It is possible to avoid most worldly customs and still be proud, covetous, selfish, stubborn, and arrogant. Only when the Holy Spirit renews, reeducates, and redirects our mind are we truly transformed:

Romans 8:5-6 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! (6) Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

Application:

One of the greatest battles that Christians battle is in the "battlefield of the mind." The mind is where fears can be incubated. Worry attempts to crowd out confidence. Insecurity tries to bully securitiy. Doubt attempts to overshadow faith. Anger slow eats away at peace. Before we were saved we were enemies of God, and hostile, in our minds:

Colossians 1:21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

So what we have to do daily, is to renew our minds. The word "renewal" in Romans 12:2 comes from the Greek word, "metamorphoo" where we get the word "metamorphosis", the process of change that takes place when a caterpillar changes to a butterfly, or a tadpole changes to a frog. When metamorphosis takes place, the frog is no longer a tadpole. He is a "new creation" and does things that he could have never done as a tadpole.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (TM) Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it!

2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV) Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

The Greek word for "old things" is archaios where we get the word archaic. One of the definitions of archaic is: "No longer in everyday use but sometimes used to impart an old-fashioned flavor."

The problem with the mind is that it so easiy wants to revert back to the way we thought, acted, talked, lived BEFORE we became a Christian, a NEW creature in Christ. Paul says our old way of thinking must become archaic. We must stop "imparting an old fashioned flavor" in our thinking. We must stop thinking, and thus acting, like we are not regenerated, saved, a new creature in Christ. In metamorphosis terms, we must stop acting like a "tadpole" because we are now a "frog". We are different than we used to be if we have been born again! If you do not RENEW your mind daily, then you are keeping your old, unregenerated way of thinking active and current, which is the direct oppostie of archaic.

How do you metamorphoo (renew) your mind daily, and make sure the "old things" are archaic? Make sure you spend time every day in God's Word. Start the day off with God's Word, and do not move on from God's Word until you have a "rhema" Word that you can put into the "crock pot of your mind" and allow it to simmer all day. You think on that Word, you talk about it to someone you work with, or go to school with. You pray it throughout the day, you speak it outloud. As you do this, your mind will be renewed. If you do not do this, the archaic way of thinking, doing, will take over.

As long as we live in this world, the "default" in our thinking is "old things" and if you do not daily...DAILY...renew your mind, by meditating (thinking, dwelling on) the Word of God, you mind will not be renewed.

So, make sure your mind is renewed today, and you make the old way of thinking archaic! You ARE a new creation in Christ. You are no longer lost, but you are found. You are no longer an enemy of God in your mind! You are in the process of metamorphosis! You are being changed from "old things" to new things.

Prayer:

"Lord, thank You that I am a new creation, a new creature because I trust You today for salvation. I am so thankful that my old way of doing things is archaic, and the new is active! I am thankful for this 'rhema Word' this morning that has been deposited into my mind. I will not live, think, act like, talk like my archaic self, but my new self! I want the aroma of this Word to go with me and affect everything about this day. In Jesus name, amen!"