Article March 30, 1981 Issue

Renovating our thinking

WILLIAM E. MOODY

Considering the state of world affairs, it would seem that mankind's thinking is dilapidated and suffering from all sorts of defects and limitations. Material-mindedness and self-centeredness are gnawing at individual dignity and worth. Psychology claims that inadequacy is somehow natural and to be expected—the normal basis from which men and women will always think and respond. But if materiality, selfishness, and sensuality are finding occupancy in our thought, then it's time for a renovation.

Paul spoke fervently to the early Christians of the need to "put off the old man with his deeds" and "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."^{Col. 3:9, 10.} He surely wasn't talking about buying a new wardrobe or building up a new physique. The needed change from "the old man" to "the new man" is always effected first in consciousness.

We renovate, or transform, our thinking through prayer and self-sacrifice. Humbly acknowledging man's oneness with God and man's innate goodness and purity is such prayer. So is recognizing more clearly that God is Mind and that man is His expression. To put into practice a larger measure of the unselfed love that is truly man's natural and normal activity is genuine self sacrifice. We are exchanging worn-out, limited ways of thinking for fresh, divinely inspired thinking and living. Christ Jesus, in his private encounter with Nicodemus, came to the point when he said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."^{John 3:3.}

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