A Christian Meditation on Embracing Your “New Self” in Ephesians 4:22–24

<p>This kind of Christian meditation brings the transcendent experience of God into your mind and into your body so that you can replace anxiety, insecurity, stress and tension with the better and truer imagination of God’s infinite and intimate presence and love for YOU.</p><p><br></p><p>(If your podcast is set to skip silent sections, disable that now.)&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>Like so much of the Bible, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%204%3A22-24&amp;version=NIV" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ephesians 4:22-24</a> is highly imaginative language. And it’s primarily giving you an image to imagine regarding your very <strong><em>identity</em></strong>. It’s trying to help you understand some mysterious unseen reality by giving you understandable imagery to imagine as true for you.</p><p><br></p><p>“<em>Your old self</em>” is some shadowy <strong><em>thing</em></strong> that is corrupt with deceitful desires that we are to actively and mindfully “put off.” It’s no longer the real you. It’s something else that’s always following you.</p><p><br></p><p>Thomas Merton called this thing the “<strong><em>false self</em></strong>.” He wrote, “Every one of us is <em>shadowed</em> by an illusory person: a false self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves — the ones we are born with and which feed the roots of sin. For most of the people in the world, there is no greater subjective reality than this false self of theirs. A life devoted to the cult of this shadow is what is called a life of sin.”&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Body Meditation</strong></p><p>In a minute we’re going to meditate on Ephesians 4 (see timestamp below). But before that, let’s get your body in a good physical and spiritual disposition to meditate so that you can recalibrate your body and mind with God’s infinite wonder and intimate presence and love for you right now <em>in this moment</em>.</p><p><br></p><p>If you’re able, lie flat on your back, or si