But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Colossians 3:8-10
Have you ever asked the Holy Spirit what is the ‘old self’? The Greek words translate those words as ‘ancient / old man’. I think it is our naturally created flesh nature which is so susceptible to be influenced by this ‘cursed fallen world’. Jesus came to give us a ‘new’ heart and a renewed spirit, by giving us access to God through His sacrifice for us. Now putting off the old self is a life long process that everyone must deal with after willingly surrendering our complete lives to Christ. This process is allowing the Holy Spirit to re-program, and plant His fruit within our lives.
In my humble opinion I can easily discern three main roots within our natural character that the Holy Spirit wants to re-program, they are pride, fear, and lust. The Holy Spirit wants to us to replace pride with humility (knowing truly and exactly where we stand with God, and our true identity in Him), divinely imparted faith from God for fear, and spiritual and emotional contentment (fruit of the Spirit) for lust. Almost all of our soul and mental issues are dealing with one or more or all three of these character ‘roots’ in our lives. We ALL should be dealing with increasing depths of removing these roots and diminishing these in our character – with the help of the Holy Spirit. This must be the ‘inner work’ one must do with the Holy Spirit on a situation by situation basis. Usually we face situations daily in our lives that can easily ‘activate’ these ‘old self roots’ where we actually need His council to help us navigate through them.
.. take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5
How can this even be accomplished? How do we actually ‘abide’ in Him… always? We must learn to keep Him in the forefront of our minds as we go through our day.. keeping the conversation open between the two of you. Always ready to listen to what He is saying to us. Being willing to obey Him quickly when He gives us instruction for a task at hand. This is a mental discipline that needs to be learned and practiced daily.
What areas of your lives are being inundated by these roots of pride, fear, and lust? Are the enemies of God convincing you with their lies? Is the Holy Spirit pointing out their lies and thoughts in your mind? Have you learned how to differentiate those sources of your thoughts? This is why we ask the Holy Spirit to help us recognize whether a thought in our mind is from Him or not. I’m not talking about religious formulas or memorized carefully worded prayers but an open ‘line’ of communication between the Holy Spirit and yourself, where you are constantly asking Him questions and asking Him for direction. Again… this is ‘inner work’, and an inner conversation with the Holy Spirit where you learn to grow in immediately recognizing His Voice within you. This takes lots of time and practice — just like any other relationship, friendship, and deeply honest and transparent conversation. How honest are with yourself? Do you quickly deny the things the Holy Spirit is highlighting with you that need to change? Learning to submit to Him must come for any spiritual and character growth to happen within you.
How are we made and changed into the life of Jesus Christ? Submission. Surrender. A heart of quick repentance. Leaning into the fruit the Holy Spirit has been working on in your life. How goes the fruit of self control? Or kindness? Or peace? Or joy? All of these nine fruit take the Master Gardener to be tending, pruning, and watering in our body, mind, and soul. We MUST allow Him to do the work in us. This is NOT a religious formula, it IS a relationship. So much of the institutional religious Church settings / services has formalized our relationship with God into ‘steps’ rather than a real on going friendship and conversation. We must learn to ‘hear’ Him within us rather than just jumping through religious hoops. Doing religious ‘hoops’ is easier and eventually more frustrating because it totally diminishes the real relationship with Him. And religious formulas will never satisfy the soul which was made to be inhabited by His Holy Spirit.
Begin the conversation with Him right now.