Displacement. A science-y word with a whacking great godly truth for us. Did you ever hear that story about Archimedes taking a bath, watching water spill out as he lowered himself in? Or the old primary school experiments? That’s how displacement works. And it’s how the Holy Spirit works in our minds, too. We’ll explain in a moment. First, take a read of Galatians 5:16 – 25.
Back with us again? Great. What you read in Galatians was holy displacement. There’s no space for sin in our minds, when God’s Spirit moves in and all the muck of the world drains out. As we welcome the Spirit in, we welcome His character traits – love, joy, peace, everything you just read. So rather than spending your whole life running round in circles trying to avoid sin, just focus on welcoming the Spirit and His character. Because as you do that, you’ll find you’ve got no headspace for sin any more. You can’t be bothered with drunkenness now, because it’s no match for experiencing the actual, hilarious joy of God. It’s a pale shadow. You don’t want to feed jealousy and anger now, because your first move is always generosity. Your first instincts are changing. You’re becoming more glorious. Focus on that, and don’t even wave goodbye to sin as it trickles off miserably.
What now?
List off everything you don’t want hanging around your mind – every lie, everything that annoys you. Next to the list, write the opposite of each. Those are what God has for you. Tear off the first list and pop it in the bin.
