Colossians 3:9
Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
The old man is self centered, while the new man is Christ centered. When we talk about the old man, the first thing that comes to believers mind is the list of sins, but they ignore the fact that dead work is one of the nature of the old man and is very deceptive. Every believer know the deadly effects of sin, but only a very few are aware of the deadly effects of the dead works. The interesting fact about the deception is, the people who are under deception will never recognize it, unless and until they are open to Holy Spirit.
I believe we all are under some kind of deceptions. Whichever area in life we have pride we are under some kind of deception. The dead work I mean are the works that looks great and sounds good performed by a believer to please God. We have to understand that “Repentance from dead work” is the first principle of the doctrine of Christ (Hebrews 6:1). God is only pleased with us when we put our faith on the perfect work of Jesus on the cross.
The old man was under the law, and under the law man had to please God by his own efforts of praying, fasting, tithing etc. This old man is dead when Jesus died on the cross for humanity, but he had left over his mind, his habits, his knowledge, patterns of thinking in our soul. We have to renew our soul or flush out everything associated with the old man [Romans 12:2] to lead new man’s life.
The new man is under Grace and is already pleased by God by the perfect work of Jesus on the Cross. Our identity is changed from sinner to righteous because of our faith in the perfect work of Jesus. We have to put off the old man''s left over residue in our soul and put on the new man. Majority of the Christians put on the new man on top of the old man, and that is why we are still deceived by the devil.
We have to put off the old man first to put on the new man. I believe a preacher and teacher of the Word of God must help the believer to strip the old man, and help the believer to put on Christ. It is hard to strip the religious make up of believers, because it hurts them. The reason why Pharisees and Sadducees hate Jesus the most, because every word coming out from the mouth of Jesus was stripping their religious identity. Even now, wherever the message of Grace or Christ is preached, religious Christians get mad.
The devils deception is to make you feel that you are not worthy. The corresponding action of unworthy feeling is usually dead works. Believers take decision to get out from their unworthiness by praying more, fasting more or doing more to God, forgetting the fact that the only worth we have is “Jesus perfect work for us”.
We are worthy only because of Jesus, not because our performance. The remedy for the unworthy feeling is building our trust on the perfect work of Jesus by intimacy with Jesus. Let all Good works from us be a byproduct of our trust in Jesus