Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 4: Put Off, Renew, Put On • 89

Putting Off and Its Connection to Life and Ministry This putting off is an essential skill in learning to get our pretense on, that is, in affirming the truth about ourselves and our lives as given to us through Christ Jesus. In my view, effective discipleship and leadership development is essentially an issue of biblical truth and identity formation . Of course, identity formation flows from the truth learned in Christ (i.e., no truth in Christ, no lived-out new identity). Jesus made this plain in addressing some people who only recently believed in him. “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, [32] and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’” (John 8.31-32). This abiding in the Word of God demands that you commit yourself to firmly and courageously confront every falsehood that you become aware of about who you were, who you are, and what you can be. One of the most difficult things you must learn in putting off is feeling awkward in rejecting ideas that you have embraced and told yourself for years, even throughout your entire life. You must not allow yourself to deal with these perspectives and practices in some strange kind of sympathetic way. Every follower of Christ must learn the importance of putting off his/her pagan, pre-Christian identity which was governed by lies and deceit. This means that we must increasingly become aware of the automatic thoughts that enter into our minds, with their specific messages and absolute terminologies of “must,” “always,” “never,” “should,” and “ought.” These sentences we say to ourselves must be tested according to the truth, and rephrased, for we tend to “awfulize” the things we face. These thoughts (the old identities and perspectives) must be recognized, rejected, and replaced with the truth. “But test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5.21). J. A. Motyer is correct when he says that “to know” is not a mere exercise of the head. Nothing is “known” until it has also passed over into obedience. 14 We must first learn to put off the