Ephesians 4:17-24
Thinking with attitude
Without a saving knowledge of Jesus, our thinking is futile. The apostle Paul wants us to get to v23 – to be made new in the attitude of our minds – but this is not how we start. We start with wrong attitudes because our thinking is wrong.
It is vital that we understand that having the right mental attitude isn’t simply a matter of personality: Don’t allow your personality to control your attitude.
(Last autumn I posted a series about personality on my blog, that you may find helpful.)
Each of us has a different personality and the type of personality we have makes a huge difference to how each of us approaches life and how others perceive us, but attitude is not personality dependent.
Paul, rounding off his first letter to the Corinthians says, “by the grace of God I am what I am.” (1 Cor 15:10) John Newton expanded this statement:
“I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God, I am what I am.”
It is important to see here what Paul and John Newton are saying and what they are not saying. They are saying that it is by God’s grace that they are what they are. That is very different from what our culture says, which is simply “I am what I am.” In our culture there is an assumption that we are just who we are, that our personality determines our attitude, and that there is nothing we can do about it. This then becomes an excuse for all kinds of rubbishy attitudes, and for all kind of sin. “I couldn’t help it – that’s just the way I am” is the normal refrain.
But this is a childish way to live.
John Maxwell in Developing the Leader Within You,
puts it like this:
We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice. I am amazed at the large number of adults who fail to take responsibility for their attitudes. If they’re grumpy and someone asks why, they’ll say, “I got up on the wrong side of the bed.” When failure begins to plague their lives, they’ll say, “I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.” When life begins to flatten out and others in the family are still climbing, they’ll say, “Well, I was in the wrong birth order in my family.” When their marriages fail, they believe they married the wrong person. When someone else gets a promotion they wanted, it’s because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time..
Do you notice something? They are blaming everyone else for their problems.
The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up
As Christians we can never say, “That’s just the way I am.” We can never say that its all down to our personality, or the way life has treated us, or what our parents are like. All those things have a huge impact upon us, but none of them is as great or as important as God’s grace.
Grace = Change
The message of grace is that we can change! Yes, we all have certain personality types, but our personality does not have to determine our attitude. Whether you have an attitude of praise in the end comes down to the way you decide to respond to grace, not to the shape of your personality. How you then work that out will be affected by personality – the way that you praise, pray, worship, sing, express gratitude – but the fundamental factor is grace, not personality. Paul doesn’t say the way that the Ephesians are to live is personality shaped. No, their attitude is to be shaped by what Jesus has done in them.
Naturally ignorant – and sinful
The natural state of man is ignorance about God. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you are academically, and it doesn’t matter how wonderful your personality is; if you don’t know Jesus you are living in ignorance.
The natural state of man is to be out of touch with God. This means that naturally we do not have wide praise horizons – naturally we don’t praise at all! Until we respond as we should to his grace, our thinking is futile and our attitude stinks.
People are not fundamentally good. Fundamentally we are far from God and ignorant of him, and hard of heart.
The consequence of this ignorance of God and the attitude it displays, is all kinds of sinful behaviour. Every selfish human act; every unkind word; every lie; every expression of idolatry; all of it is evidence of ignorance about God.
Transformed attitude
When we come to know Christ this ignorance is dispelled and the way we behave is transformed. Knowing Christ we get plugged back into God. We are transformed people – in our attitudes, thoughts and actions.
Paul says that we have “learned Christ.” We haven’t simply got to know something about him, but we have learned Him. When you really learn something it changes how you live – it shapes you, it starts to define you. We learn Christ and we are changed. The attitude of our minds are changed. We think differently, act differently, praise differently.
Change is possible. I am not just, “I am what I am.” No! In Christ, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” I’ve learnt Christ. I am changed. I’m no longer a slave to my history, my body, my personality – Christ is in me. He reigns supreme.
Hearing right
Did you hear the gospel right? Paul assumes that the Ephesians have, but lots of us have got into trouble assuming things that weren’t actually the case. So Paul’s question to you is, have you heard the gospel right?
The gospel isn’t only “Jesus loves you.” It isn’t only “God accepts you.” There is a danger that that is all we hear, and we respond by thinking, “That’s alright then, that’s a heavenly insurance policy tucked away in the back pocket.” But it doesn’t actually make any difference to the way you think or act or live – you haven’t really been born again; you’ve just got a bit of religion.
A real turning to Jesus means nailing your old self to the cross with him. It means an honest acknowledgement of your sin and need of a saviour. It means belief and repentance. Your behaviour always reflects your belief. Does your behaviour – does your attitude – demonstrate that you are a new creation in Christ Jesus? The gospel offers and demands change – radical transformation. It offers and demands a 180 degree turn from the path we have been on. It offers and demands that we learn Christ; that we put off our old self; that we become new.
New attitude
If we hear the gospel right, and respond to it right, there is a transforming of the attitude of our minds – we begin to think differently! And when we think differently, we act differently. We start to reflect the character of God. We begin to live righteous and holy lives. We get pure.
The message of this passage is that we can change! By the grace of God we can become what we are meant to be. You are not a slave to your personality. You are not a slave to your family history. You are not a slave to your life experiences. In Christ Jesus you can be created anew, your mind transformed, your attitudes rebooted.
And having this attitude generates in us wide horizon praise.
Application Questions
• Under what circumstances are you most likely to complain?
• What are the practical out-workings of having a thankful attitude?
• Does your attitude show evidence of maturity or immaturity?
• What people do you most admire? What is it about their attitude that attracts you?
• If there was one thing about your attitude you could change, what would it be? What can you do to make this change begin to happen?
Recommended Reading
Thanksgiving by David Pao. This is a study of Paul’s attitude towards thankfulness. It shows how central offering thanks to God is to Paul’s theology.
Thanking God by R.T. Kendall is an easier to read exploration of the how’s, why’s and what’s of thankfulness, packed with biblical insights and anecdotes from Kendall’s long ministry.
