All Things in Christ
By Tammy Lacock
In this week’s Part 8 of Renewing the Mind, Warren Litzman makes it very clear, through Paul’s epistles, that in order to live who God created us to be here in this world, we as believers, must have a radical mind-change. He notes however, as Paul does, that since our minds have been usurped by Satan for so long before coming to Christ, this radical mind-change takes time. Only by the help of the Holy Spirit working in our minds will we have a constant mind-renewal. To know and fall in love with the Christ that now lives in us is the very reason we are here. We can ask the Holy Spirit to teach us and comfort us as we grow in our new life, in our unique and personal relationship with Christ.
Paul was the only man raised up by Christ Himself to bring us an entirely new gospel, one that requires a radical mind-change in order to understand it. This new gospel, simply put, is that by Christ’s death and resurrection, we as believers, are now brand-new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), no longer under the bondage of Satan. Christ, the one for whom all things were created, is now the one who literally lives in us. May our minds be renewed to this truth. The sin nature passed down by the curse of Satan has been uprooted and replaced by Christ’s nature, the very Seed of God. He now lives in us, joined to our spirits (1 Corinthians 6:17), yet our minds need to catch up to this new knowledge. Paul understood back in his day that this was extremely difficult for believers to grasp. And the same is true today. Our minds are quite literally the battlefield between what Paul calls our “old man” understanding and our new life in Christ. He says “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” to help us understand that our new life in Christ is also a daily and continual surrendering to Him (mind-renewal).
In Colossians chapter one, Paul tells us all things were created for Christ. Paul also tells us in Ephesians 1:4, that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. These truths are very important to understand (mind-renewal) as we live our new life in Christ.
We were created for Christ and indeed, as believers, we are complete in Him. We are now ready to live who God created us to be.
We went from our old sin-natured operator, Satan, who was contrary to Christ, to the one who holds all things together and who was created for all things, the operator who God intended for us. In Christ, we can do all things, for nothing, not one thing, is impossible with Him. May we undergo this radical mind-change!
“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4 KJV)
