Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God - truly righteous and holy. (Ep4:23) ...Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think....(Ro12:2) Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like Him. Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Col3:10,12)
Righteousness is the state of being righteous, that is, acting in accord with divine or moral law, free from guilt, innocent and justified. This is what Jesus did for us, what the Good News of the Gospel is all about. ...But even greater is God's wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ. Yes, Adam's one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone.So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Ro5:17,18,21)
Because of what Jesus did for us, we are no longer slaves to sin and death, we can live in triumph over them. We have the Holy Spirit living in us and He produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.... (Ga5:22,23) This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us, we can not produce these fruits on our own nor can we decide what spiritual gifts we would like. (1Co12:11) We have been made righteous, we live in Christ in a right relationship with our Creator.
The personality that came to us through our DNA that was crafted through centuries by our ancestors marrying a certain person and having children down through the ages; all the time honing the qualities of our DNA so that we would have exactly the gifts and talents we need for here and now. We have been centuries in the making and planned by God since before the foundation of the world. (Ep1:4) So what's wrong? Why do I still do things I know I shouldn't? Why do I still fall into the same holes of poor choices and bad responses? God never set a standard of behaviour for us that was impossible to attain. We are Christ's ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. (2Co5:20) and we don't want to bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way we live....(Ep4:30) so what do we do?
We put on the new nature, one decision at a time. According to those who study the brain, when we repeat an action or response we create a track in our brain a bit like a path in a field of long grass where people take a short cut. across the field. After enough times, the brain prompts us to respond to the cue using this default response of the past. For instance, when we get petrol and see chocolate on the stand at the counter, we do what we usually do, we buy it. Or if someone is disrespectful towards us, we react, often without weighing our actions.
The problem is in the mind. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. (Ro8:6) In practical everyday life, what this looks like is a consciously changed response. 'Yes, I see that chocolate by the counter, but today I am not buying it.' If we do this enough times, not buying chocolate becomes our default response and the old default response path in our brain disappears. It is estimated that it takes 21 days of a changed response to a situation to change our default response. But it takes effort on our part. This is the part that God will not do for us because it would violate the free will He gave us.
We are righteous in Christ and we have right standing before God. Yet now He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ in His physical body. As a result, He has brought you into His own presence and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault. (Col1:22) We can not improve the position that we have in Christ and in God's sight but we can change our behaviour to reflect our new life. But to change old habits and responses, we have to make the effort to want to change how we react when we face situations that we know we should handle differently. If we do nothing, we will stay parked in our old habits and responses that don't reflect Jesus or the new life He died to give us.
...Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him. (Ph2:12,13)
Praise the Name of Jesus!
These scriptures are quoted from the New Living Translation second edition except where stated otherwise. Where there are three full stops (...), part of the verse has been omitted.