Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 4: Put Off, Renew, Put On • 81

around the coop. The eagle-turned-chicken kept looking up, wondering why he felt so pulled to the big bird of the air.

The End?

This homely little tale gets at the core of TUMI’s core ministry intent – we seek to empower eagles-acting-like-chickens to awaken to their true selves, to shift their identities by claiming the truth of Jesus Christ, and placing themselves in a position to learn to fly! Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians in Ephesians 4.20-24, outlines a biblical strategy for learning to get your pretense on. In the previous chapters we looked at the Story of God through the lens of the Kingdom and the Church. Now, informed by what the Lord God is doing in the world and in creation, we are in a better position to understand who we are and what we are called to do. You can discover your place in the midst of God’s work, and by getting your pretense on, you can allow yourself to begin to think, act, and speak in ways that correspond to who you really are, and not the way you’ve been conditioned and socialized. You can be who you truly are (an eagle) and not what you’ve been conditioned to become (a chicken). In this chapter we will look at Ephesians 4.20-24 seeking to make sense of three, interconnected truths related to our development of a Kingdom, Christ-centered identity. First, we must teach the eagle that he’s not and never was a chicken (Paul’s “put off the old man with its evil desires”). Second, we must disciple the eagle in God’s design for eaglehood (Paul’s “be renewed in the spirit of your mind”). Finally, we must challenge the eagle to start acting like he truly is an eagle, everyday in every way (Paul’s “put on the new man, created by God’s likeness). These three steps of putting off, renewing our mind, and putting on constitutes what it means to live into your true identity in Christ, to “get your pretense on.”