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Exchanged Glory: A Vision of Freedom
<page 69>As I formed my new view of how I should work with God, I realized that I needed to consciously reprogram my mind one thought pattern at a time. I had to spell out each truth using my reason, and decide to follow it using my will. I had previously just tried to have a good heart; I now saw that I needed to direct my deceitful heart with detailed insight.
As I read through my father’s books, I changed my view of how God wanted to work in my life. I realized that though I had studied and applied the Bible for years, I lacked the wisdom to do it well. The books weren’t Christian, so I had to rework the information in them to make it fit with what I knew from God’s word, but as I did, I came up with an understanding that allowed me to more practically apply His truth.
It was based on some observations about how our minds work. Doctors have used electrodes to stimulate different parts of people’s brains.[26] The patients reported that this allowed them to recall past events they had forgotten. The memories included not only the details of what had happened, but also the emotions they had felt at the time. These experiments showed in an artificial way what we know from everyday experience, that present day events often bring back our past memories and feelings.
I sometimes notice this happening when I listen to a song I knew while growing up. The music stirs the feelings I had in my youth. I become locked in a kind of nostalgic time warp where my emotions are a mixture of what the song did to me thirty years ago and what it does to me today.
In a similar way, as we walk through our lives, our thoughts, feelings, and reactions are not just based on today’s experiences, but are deeply affected by our past. If we have been hurt at some time, new pain tends to resurface the old wounds. If we have been happy, new joys reignite the old delight. If we have been fearful, new angst adds to the old, being reinforced with each new trauma.
In time, our minds become trained to think in certain ways. They develop habits. Often, the original events that have shaped us are forgotten, and all we have left are the opinions and emotions that form our view of ourselves and the world around us. These ingrained patterns aren’t as simple as what we usually think of as habits, like chewing our fingernails or putting our elbows on the table. They involve complicated chains of images, fears, and pleasures that control us in unexpected ways.
<page 70>Many of our habits have been shaped by our sin. We have formed complex webs of disobedience that have become so built into us that they form a part of our identity. They seem to be inescapable pieces of who we are and surface in so many different ways that we can’t imagine life without them.
Sexual addiction is an example of such a web. It affects how we view movies, how we handle stress, how we look at the opposite sex, what we think about when we are alone, and a host of other activities. It becomes so woven into the fabric of our inner being that any thought of tearing it out seems hopeless.
We can become so confused that even when we admit we have a problem, we can’t seem to see the truth. When I was bound by a smoking fetish, it was obvious that I was deceived, because I was turned on by something unrelated to sex. Still, the more I looked in my heart for the answers, the more I came away concluding that this fetish was normal for me. It just seemed to be who I was.
Misled thought patterns often feel more “natural” to us than righteous ones. The Bible says:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?
Our desperately wicked heart is where our thoughts and feelings reside. We get lost in a maze of deceit and confusion that sends us in circles, doing the same foolish actions repeatedly. It all seems so normal to us that we often don’t realize we are headed for disaster until it strikes us. Then we ask, “What went wrong?”
The problem goes deeper than our own failures, however. The sins of our relatives and our society affect us also. We all learn, to a certain extent, to see the world through the eyes of those around us. The security of fitting in tends to lock us into their view of life, even when it is wrong.
Between my inner weakness and the sins of my relatives, it made sense that I would fall into sexual addiction. My family had been hurt for generations by sexual sins and alcoholism. Before I ever did an addictive activity, I was subconsciously inclined toward using pleasure to avoid pain. Once that leaning was in place, some kind of addiction was bound to result.
I believe the “pleasure to avoid pain” tendency was also a cause of the problem I mentioned in Chapter Nine, where I tended to lose my temper after I spent time in prayer and Bible study (the “Flying Pens and other Frustrations” section). When I sought God, I wasn’t just trying to know Him, I was also seeking a spiritual pleasure as an escape from everyday life.
When circumstances took my “fix” away, I crashed like a drug addict coming down from his high. I reacted with anger to the people and events that stole my spiritual trip. The web of deceit in my heart sabotaged even my best attempts to follow Jesus.
<page 71>It is important to mention one more area in which our past comes back. The Bible makes it clear that before we give our lives to Christ, human beings are in bondage to an evil spiritual reality.
…in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience …
We develop a relationship with the prince of the power of the air (the devil) and the unclean spirits that serve under him. They are a part of our spiritual atmosphere (the air), and we learn to walk according to them.
When we become Christians, we are free from their power, but because of the way our hearts work, our relationship with them tends to resurface. This continues until we learn to, by God’s grace, break it off.
I believe that the “cloud of demons” experience I described in the first chapter of this book[27] was an extreme example of my relationship with evil spirits resurfacing. I didn’t know how to be filled with Jesus in a way that would keep them out. My heart contained a spiritual vacuum, and a group of homeless demons moved into a part of it.
"When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. …”
I will talk more about evil spirits in later books of this series. For now, I only want to point out that they are another area in which our past sin tends to lead us into trouble.
A big part of the Christian life involves replacing bad thinking habits with good ones. God wants to expose the deceptions of our heart and replace them with His truth. The Bible calls this the renewing of our mind.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (emphasis added)
<page 72> We make ourselves a living sacrifice on God’s altar when we decide to obey Jesus and trust Him with all that happens in our lives. Under the Law of Moses, sacrifices were consumed by fire. As we follow Jesus, the power of His death and resurrection consumes our old self in the fire of His truth, Spirit, and dealings. It can be a frightening and painful process, but as we submit to it, God gives us a new way of thinking.
I had placed myself on God’s alter as a teenager, but I didn’t understand how my mind was going to be renewed. I expected that if I believed hard enough and spent enough time in spiritual disciplines, the Holy Spirit would mystically renovate me. By an unconscious miracle, I would put off the old self and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-24).
I wanted God to make me into a new person in the same way He changed King Saul in the Old Testament.
Then the Spirit of the LORD will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. …When they came there to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him; then the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. (emphasis added)
(1 Samuel 10:6; 10)
I had experienced what Saul had many times as I had become another man under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The times in God’s presence were so moving that I thought to myself, “If I could just hang on to this, I would be OK.” Years of trying and failing convinced me that though there is great value in having powerful experiences, they won’t change a person by themselves. It takes more than faith and these kinds of encounters to consistently put on the new self.
Amazingly, after King Saul was transformed by the Holy Spirit, he returned to being himself. In fact, he went on to be so disobedient that God rejected him as king. In order to really change, he needed to make difficult decisions to think and act in the way God wanted him to, but he resisted. God’s strength wasn’t intended to remake him without his cooperation.
As I formed my new view of how I should work with God, I realized that I needed to consciously reprogram my mind one thought pattern at a time. I had to spell out each truth using my reason, and decide to follow it using my will. I had previously just tried to have a good heart; I now saw that I needed to direct my deceitful heart with detailed insight.
I knew it would be a slow step by step process and would be difficult, but I couldn’t see any other way. I had tried to find a more direct route to the new self and had failed.
When the Bible talks about the old self and the new self, it is talking about two differing ways of thinking, acting, and feeling. As we slowly rewire our hearts by the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are putting off the old self and putting on the new. We can’t do this in the same way we would change shirts, because there is too much old garbage in our minds to replace it all at once. Instead, if the old self and new self are like shirts, we switch them one thread at a time. Each wrong way of thinking, feeling, or acting we identify and replace is a thread of the old self being torn out for the new.
The Bible calls this process having our minds renewed (Romans 12:2), being renewed to a true knowledge, and being renewed in the spirit of our mind.
<page 73>…Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him (emphasis added)
(Colossians 3:9-10, NAS)
…that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (emphasis added)
(Ephesians 4:22-24, NAS)
To follow Jesus in my sexual life, I identified specific actions, thoughts, and feelings that expressed His heart. I then looked for ways to discipline myself to act, think, and feel in the way He wanted me to. I used my mind to map out God’s goal and my will to move in that direction.
I took a similar approach on my job and in other areas of my life. I tried to learn the specifics of what I needed to become and to find God’s way to get me there.
The whole process was impossible apart from my relationship with Jesus. Only He could give me the guidance to see the path, the encouragement to keep going, and the strength to follow through. The years I had spent seeking God (even while I stumbled in my walk) formed a spiritual foundation I could build on. Changing how I thought was scary and painful. Knowing Jesus in the middle of it made it exciting.
My new view of the new self has helped me to understand why large changes have often been so difficult. I have many times learned and applied one truth after another, yet none of the insights seemed to produce a significant difference. Then, one day I would get an insight that would bring everything together into a life transforming understanding. It turned out that each piece of knowledge along the way had been a thread in the shirt of the new self, and a significant change was only possible when I had enough fibers to make up a fairly large part. Each thread didn’t seem that important by itself, but when many came together I found new life.
It takes faith to continue to add threads in obedience to God when we don’t notice anything significant, but the Christian life is from faith to faith.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."
I had to trust that God was guiding me in what to learn and how to put it into practice. It was difficult to know His part versus mine. At first I felt guilty, because in reprogramming my mind I feared I was relying on my flesh rather than the Spirit. I was afraid I was doing too much, but by that point in my life, years of struggling had convinced me that I needed to change my approach. Becoming more actively involved in my obedience seemed wise. I suspected that <page 74>God had allowed my circumstances to frustrate me to the point where I would step out in faith and trust Him as I made the adjustment.
In Chapter Nine, “Stuck in the Old Self,” I described my difficulty in trying to live out Romans 6. Based on what I have just written, I will tell you how I now interpret it.
Know I am dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:6-10).
Know that Jesus has done a mysterious work where I have died with Him and been raised from the dead in baptism.
Reckon myself to be dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11).
Based on the work Jesus has done, believe that my old sinful thought and action patterns can be replaced by new godly ones. Believe that God will enable me to understand His word so I can identify the truth, and that He will arrange circumstances to help me in this humanly impossible process.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Do not let sin reign in my body (Romans 6:12).
As I learn new ways of thinking and acting, the old ways will fight back. Sin will try to tear apart the new threads. I have to say “no” to sin, even if it is painful. By the grace of God I must hang on to what He has given me and not let the old ways return.
Do not present myself to sin (Romans 6:13).
Avoid putting myself in situations that are intended to bring back old patterns. An easy example is to stay away from pornography. Less blatant temptations call for wisdom about whether to flee or fight. In all situations, I should try to avoid thinking and acting in sinful ways.
Present myself to God (Romans 6:13).
Do the activities that help me find the new ways God wants for me. For example, read the Bible, pray, and go to church. If I learn something I think God wants me to do, try to make it a part of my life. Maybe it will come easily. If it doesn’t, ask Him to show me if there are other insights I need to learn. Maybe I need a number of different lessons <page 75>(many threads) before I will see change. Present myself to God by making myself available and ready to work with Him as He adds new truths to my life.
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