"Be Transformed to Make Your Mind Over" - "PUT ON THE NEW PERSONALITY"

 Read Ephesians 4:31, 32. Besides making changes in our thinking, we need to "put on the new personality." (Ephesians  4:24) That involves action on our part.  Among other things, we must work hard to overcome such personality traits as  malicious bitterness, anger, and wrath.  Why might that be challenging? Because some negative personality traits are deeply-rooted. For example, the Bible says that some people are "prone to anger" and "disposed to rage." (Proverbs 29:22) Controlling ingrained traits will likely require continual effort even after baptism, as the following experience shows.

A brother named Stephen had a problem controlling his anger. "Even after I was baptized," he says, "I had to keep working on my temper.  For example, on one occasion while going from house to house in the Christian ministry, I chased after a thief who has just stolen the radio from my car.  As I got closer to him, he dropped the radio and ran away.  When I related it to the others with me how I got my radio back, an elder in the group asked me, 'Stephen, what would you have done if you had caught up with him?'  That question made me think and motivated me to keep working at being peaceable.

Next time: "Be Transformed to Make Your Mind Over" - "PUT ON THE NEW PERSONALITY

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