Put On The New Self

Grace has been given as I apportioned it. I have given some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare my people for works of service, so that my body may be built up until you all reach unity in the Faith and in the knowledge of my Son and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then you will no longer be an infant, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, you will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

So I tell you this, and insist on it, that you must no longer live in the futility of your thinking. Once you were darkened in your understanding and separated from my life because of your ignorance due to the hardening of your heart. You were insensitive to spiritual things, having given yourself over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him, in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your mind; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

(Eph. 4:7—24)