Re-formation

“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Romans 6:14
It’s a battle for the mind. The heart will go with what it knows, which is sinful, but the mind, once it is renewed by our encounter with Christ, knows better. The war begins when we consciously realize that the pattern our emotions have been molded into is wrong. Understanding ourselves from a godly standpoint, we know that change is needed. When we come to that point of knowledge, we need to take the next step in implementing that change. This is the difficult but vital part of our transformation into the image of Christ. As Romans 12:2 says, we need to be “transformed by the renewing of our mind”. In psychology I learned that behavior modification requires repetition of the new pattern to sink in and become a habit. I believe that is true for spiritual matters also. The more we counter the wrong ideas that have taken hold of us over the years with biblical truth, the more we will manifest godly change in us. And all this is of course not by our own doing and for our own glory. We cannot be good. If we produce anything good it is for a fleeting moment. Only God can give us the power for permanent reformation. And that’s exactly what we need: to be re-formed, re-shaped, re-molded. And who better to do it for us than God, the potter remolding us, the clay, into something beautiful.