Put On the New

Take Off the Old Before You Put On the New

By Rick Warren

“You were taught . . . to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”(Ephesians 4:22-24 NIV).

If you want to experience lasting change in your life, you have to start with your body, and that includes changing the way you think so that what you let into your mind and the things you think about honor God.

Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “You were taught . . . to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (NIV).

Notice that there’s a putting off and a putting on. Your health really comes down to stopping some stuff you need to stop doing and starting some stuff you need to start doing. Stop putting negative, hurtful things in your body, and start putting in things that edify.

Stop putting negative, hurtful things into your mind, and start watching and listening to things that edify and make you more like Christ. In the renewal of your mind, you’ve got to put off before you can put on.

Let’s say you go to a department store to look for a new coat. You find one and take it into one of those little changing rooms. If you’re wearing a coat already, you don’t go in there and put the new coat on over your old one. That would be absurd, because you’re not going to know if the new coat fits. It makes sense to take off the old one before you put on the new one.

You've got to take off the old before you can put on the new. That’s true spiritually and emotionally and mentally.