Colossians 3:2-4 English Standard Version

² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. ³ For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is your^[our] life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Our self or identity is hidden in Christ. Christ dwells in our heart by faith and we cannot be seen, attacked, damaged, destroyed, nor infected because our heart belongs to Jesus and Jesus protects His own. He is God and He is able to do all that.

Our minds are only one part of our eternal souls. That is why the mind needs to be retrained to align itself with our new identity which is in Christ. Paul’s expression of selflessness is poetic and noble but our minds have a difficult time in seeing that for ourselves because we are not Paul.

Galatians 2:20 English Standard Version (ESV) I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The mind renewed is selfless and agrees with our new identity in Christ who abides in our hearts by faith. That renewed mind is allowed to obey by faith and yet, it is still flesh and subject to all the attacks that our new identities are protected in Christ. Our feelings and emotions and thoughts are not attached to our will which now abides in Christ.

This creates a conflict which might be best described as a war of the mind.

“Those who have been justified by the blood of the Son of God that was shed for us, need only to be sanctified of the pervasive effects of sin and self.” C. S. Lewis

A recent study plan of C. S. Lewis on Death & Resurrection brought to light an issue about cause and effect that I have experienced but never really put into words.

We know without a doubt about the sanctification effects of our salvation as it is related to sin.

Psalm 103:12 English Standard Version (ESV) as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Isaiah 1:18 English Standard Version (ESV) “Come now, let us reason^{[correct errors in thinking]} together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

The issues of removing sin and separating it from the consequences seems easy to understand but to separate self from our identity seems a step too far for the rational mind to comprehend. We might tell ourselves “Get over yourself.” That is a concept of ideology which sounds like “I am no longer myself.” That term belong to those having psychological problems.

Yet the world accuses us of that very thing, that we have lost our minds. They believe that we have lost all rational thought. Perhaps they are right because rationalization is a justification of self-interest. We have been justified by God which is the exact opposite of self-interest.

Faith in Christ is void of all self-interest. All that can be done for self has already been accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is nothing left for self to accomplish.

The world’s idea of faith is nothing more than a justification of self-interest.