fied by the Holy Spirit and in this dedication to the Saviour is, or ought to be, everything God would have it to be. Then we catch a glimpse of this little expression “renewing” — it means that the affections of the heart, the thinking of the mind, the fulness of the soul, and the drives of the body are all to be brought into subjection to the ministry of the Holy Spirit until Jesus Christ is Lord of our life. Our mind is to be renewed as we are conformed to His image and as we grow in grace. To pursue the thought further we see that in the matter of using a camera we come to discover that the “view finder” merges two sep arate visions of an object into one. So it is that the Holy Spirit brings our mind, body and spirit into focus in Christ, thus we see conformation. Perhaps we should stop for just a moment at this point because we have a wonderful set of stairs in this particular verse. First there is a continuous action unfolding itself in the continuous proving of the be liever as he conforms in these things to the image of Christ. He proves in the renewing of his mind with the mind of Christ—step one: what is the good; step two: what is the acceptable, and step three: what is the perfect will of God. Then we see that not only the body and the mind, but in verse 3 we read that the very imaginations of a man’s mind and heart are to be given over to Christ. As the Apostle Paul states in Romans 12:3, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Sometimes, you know, when a man is spoken of in some supreme way he accepts it as if it were true. That man should think soberly! The Scripture warns us again and again that man must not be high-minded 32
FOLLOWING GOD'S WILL by Lloyd T. Anderson
Editor's Note: Dr. Anderson's material on Colos - sians was presented last month. By special re quest, the follotoing two messages have been prepared for this issue. “ ■ beseech YOU therefore brethren, I by the mercies of God, that ye present your body as a living sacri fice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service” (Ro mans 12:1). There are, at least, ten different areas in which the believer is called to be watchful, as far as the Lord Jesus Christ is permanently and def initely recorded in the verse you have just read, where God’s Word tells us that we are to make a spir itual presentation of our bodies unto the Lord. At one time during the early years of my ministry, I heard a great Bible teacher make a significant statement: “You know, the Lord al ready has your soul; He already has your spirit the moment you believe in Christ. The great problem, as far as the believer is concerned, is the body in which he happens to be liv ing with its passions, which the Bible presents to us again and again is this problem. Then, there is a second area of spiritual dedication to Christ and this, of course, is found in verse 2, “And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the re newing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and accept able and perfect will of God.” Now the second area in which the New Testament believer is to be dedicated to Jesus Christ is not only in the realm of the human body with its attendant problems, brought into subjection unto Jesus Christ. But the mind of the believer in his spiritual conformation to Christ is also to be transfigured unto the like ness of Christ because he is sancti
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