Created After the Likeness of God

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:17-24 ESV)

When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, if our faith is genuine God-gifted and God-ordained and God-persuaded faith in the Lord Jesus, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. So we are not now to let sin reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its passions and desires. For if sin is what we obey, it leads to death. But if obedience to God is what we obey it leads to righteousness and to sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (Romans 6:1-23).

Therefore, if we are of genuine faith in the Lord Jesus, we must no longer walk (in conduct, in practice) as the ungodly do. We must no longer be hardhearted against the Lord and against his teachings and against his gospel presentation. And we must no longer resist the Holy Spirit and choose to sin against the Lord and against other humans deliberately and habitually, and even premeditatedly. And we are not to surrender ourselves to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity, as some do. For that is not the way that we should have learned Christ, if we were taught the truth. 

For the truth that is in Christ Jesus teaches us to put off our old sinful self, which belongs to our former sinful manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. And we are now to be renewed in the spirit of our minds so that we don’t think like and act like we did outside of faith in Jesus Christ. For Jesus didn’t die on that cross just to forgive us our sins and to promise us heaven when we die so that we could continue in sin guilt free. He died so we would die to our old lives of sin and so we would now put on Christ and his righteousness, which is our new self, created after the likeness of God.

[Hebrews 12:1-2; Ephesians 2:8-10; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; Acts 26:18; Romans 8:1-14; Ephesians 4:17-24; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 9:23-26; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:15,21; Galatians 5:16-21]

My Heart’s Desire  

An Original Work / June 29, 2013

Based off Romans 10:1-21; Luke 9:23-26; Ephesians 4:17-24

Loved Ones, Oh, my heart’s desire

Is that you might come to Jesus.

Many appear zealous for God,

But they do not trust in Him.

They have not submitted to the One

Who saved them from their sins;

Not forsaken their sins,

Nor have they obeyed their King.

The word of the Lord is near you:

The word of faith we’re proclaiming:

That you must confess your faith

In Jesus as your Lord and King:

Believe in Him as your Lord, 

And follow Him where’er He leads.

Share the gospel; be a witness,

And meet others’ needs.

Beautiful are the feet of those

Who bring the good news of Jesus:

Anyone who would come to Him

Must deny himself today;

Die to sin and self, and

Let the Spirit transform you in heart;

Put on your new self in Jesus,

Yielding to the cross. 

https://vimeo.com/115643303