“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.  They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.  But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:17–24, ESV).

As Christians, we are to be different!

I know there are better ways to translate the passages, but I often took pride in claiming to be one of the “peculiar people” (KJV) that God has in His possession (see Titus 2:14 and 1 Peter 2:9). Or how about joining Paul in claiming to be “fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:10, ESV).

The point remains – we are to be different!

Do you remember how Paul begins Romans 12? He makes it crystal clear that the proper response to the mercy of God should be wholehearted commitment; being a Christian means that our entire of life is to be lived in service to God. We are to be changed/transformed – the word is related to metamophosis. There are things the Christian must avoid as well as things we are to do.  Paul appeals or urges the Christians at Rome to “…not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2, ESV).

When Paul writes the passage above, the is a process of change implied.  We are to put off the old, be renewed, and to put on the new.  He uses three infinitives and only one is passive.  We are to put off (aorist middle).  We are to put on (aorist middle).  But notice that we are to be renewed (present passive).  In his commentary, Kenneth Boles has written, “To be made new” (ἀνανεου̂σθαι, ananeousthai) is a present infinitive, drawing attention to the continuing aspect of the action. The renovating of one’s life is not an instantaneous thing, but a project still in progress.
The renewal takes place “in the spirit of your minds” by internal transformation. The process begins when the Spirit of Christ replaces the old self at conversion (Gal 2:20), and continues as the Christian is “transformed by the renewing of the mind” (Rom 12:2).” (Kenneth L. Boles, Galatians & Ephesians, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993), Eph 4:23.)

It is time to be different, to be transformed, to be made new… “renewed in the spirit of your minds.”