Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 4: Put Off, Renew, Put On • 87

signification of all acts. It is their orientation. It is the condition of the rest of the Christian life. Freedom is not, then, one of the elements in Christian ethics or morals. Without it there would be no ethics. The Christian life is set within it. . . . Perhaps this is something which is taken for granted. But the question of the visible and concrete manifestation of freedom is never taken as a starting-point. . . . It is a theme which has vanished from the Christian horizon. The believer is not concerned about knowing whether he is free nor is he worried in the least about ways of manifesting his freedom. In my view this is the very thing that explains the insipidity of the Christian life, its lack of meaning, its failure to make much impact on society. Works of love and service may be multiplied, justice may demonstrated, and faith may be expressed, but none of this is worth anything without freedom. 13 Putting off does relate to our past, and our present, and also to the way we view and relate to our future. Now redeemed in Christ, free from the tyranny of our past, and released from the obligation to do and be what we used to do and be, we are free to “get our pretense on:” we can now act out an entirely new identity, with a new direction, personality, vision, and purpose. We have been called to glorify God , and play our role in his story, making our contribution in our own unique way and style to God’s great redemptive activity. The following chart is my adaptation of what I take to be uniquely helpful ways to detect and put off the false perspectives and self-talk of both our pre-Christian and current thought patterns. The key to putting off is to recognize the lying pattern that gives birth to the falsehoods that you may routinely and automatically tell yourself. H. Norman Wright developed this remarkable summary of the falsehood tactics the enemy uses