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)
What does it truly mean to put off our old selves and our former lives which were corrupt by deceitful desires?
It seems like I have to give up everything I did and liked. But we are still in the world but not of the world. Can I still watch movies? I know my former deceitful desires are mixed in my motivations so what do I do?
Here it says the next step is to be renewed in the spirit of our minds and then to put on the new self. Perhaps it is the motivations of our minds and actions that first must be changed.
Gentiles including me before Christ formerly lived with the purpose of meeting my desires: emotional, feeling valued, sexual, intellectual, personal. In that former life I did whatever I could without others or myself being to critical or condemning to meet these desires.
Now in Christ what do I live for? What is the motivation that drives me? Giving glory to God. Being a part of God's purposes. Seeking God and finding him as he reveals himself to me.
Yet all of those former desires are part of the way God made us and not wrong unless being chased after in the wrong time or wrong way. Sexual desire is natural and good and the way God made me. It is not wrong that I want it, it is sinful if I seek it outside of marriage. The question is how can I fulfill the basic needs in me without sinning? How can I fuel that energy and desire towards something productive for example preparing myself for marriage: learning to dance, growing in what it means to be a man of God, learning how to communicate and care for my friends who are girls.
It is similar to how later in Ephesians 4 Paul talks about emotions particularly anger:
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. (Ephesians 4:26, 27 ESV)
God gave us emotions. Anger is not evil or sinful, but how we respond to that anger can be. Yet if we let ourselves be angry and process it and find the cause of our anger and address things in our hearts and situations then we can let our anger go in hours. This allows us to feel better and yet not sin and not suppress our emotions which leads to guilt and bitterness leaving room for the devil.
God I am letting some of my deceitful desires control me instead of living for you and glorifying you in my body and mind. Lord help me to accept the way you made me: to desire relationship and to have emotions but to not sin. Help me to be renewed in my mind that I would have your wisdom to know how to use those desires as motivations for actions that would satisfy me in healthy ways and glorify you. Lord live in me!
Amen
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