"And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Ephesians 4:23-24

Have you ever thought about what the word repentance means? It is a change of mind and attitude where our rebellious hearts are no longer set on the things of this world, but we come into the mind, or the Spirit, of Christ. Our hearts come into total submission to the Lord without rebellion. We must reflect the attributes of God which are "...righteousness and true holiness" as His image bearer.

There is no salvation without this renewing of the Spirit of your mind, which the apostle clearly and beautifully describes in the following verse. He is showing us what we are by nature and what we ought to be by putting on the new man of the heart. We cannot govern our lives by the secret will of God; we must live by the revealed will of God.

We are not to live in a fatalistic state; hiding behind our inability and placing the blame on God. We are responsible to live by His revealed will. The revealed will is to be "...renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," EPH 4:23-24.

Verses 25-32 continue by showing wherein we must put on the new man of the heart, "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

Renewing the spirit of the mind is putting away lying. Speaking the truth to each other is required to reflect the image of God. We may be angry; we may have a just wrath, but we may not let the sun go down on our wrath. A just wrath is being justly wroth against sin or any act of sin. We must reconcile and restore one who sins; things may not wear on and on.

The apostle sets forth the tendencies of the human nature that need to be renewed in the spirit of the mind. We may not neglect turning from the sins spoken of here for it grieves the Holy Spirit if we continue living in malice, speaking untruths, being lazy or sluggards, stealing instead of working for the things we need, or letting corrupt words come from our mouths.

We may have spent our whole lives blaspheming the name of God and letting corrupt communications flow from our mouth, but now He tells us "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;" we are not to let it happen again.