Condition

Do you realize that you have conditioned yourself to think and believe the way that you do? I know that we all like to think that someone or something else has conditioned us to think and behave the way that we do. Really though, we have decided to take on patterns of thinking, believing, and behaving. We decide, we condition ourselves to believe that there is no other way to think, behave, or feel. We blindly take on thoughts and behaviors, never challenging them, never wanting to look at them, never wanting to really see if there may be another reality other than the one we think we see.

But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

Ephesians 4:20-24

Everything connected to the way that we have conditioned ourselves has to go! This is the essence of discipleship and spiritual growth - a life renewed from the inside and working itself out into our conduct. We begin to recondition ourselves to the way that God thinks through practice, reading, meditation, and practice again. God then can reproduce his character in you. This cannot happen unless we are willing to let go of our own conditioning that says "can't," "won't," "don't," "too hard," and "will never happen." You believe that, you have let others and situations in your life condition you and most of us blindly accept it as truth. Look closely at Christ and no longer just accept your condition and your conditioned response. If you have taught yourself something you do not like this means that you can teach yourself something different. You can longer use ignorance to say to yourself I just "can't." God say you can and you must to have an "entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life."

Namaste'