Embrace Your New Life in Christ

Posted on by korgrocker

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.”
2 Corinthians 5:17-18 NLT

One of the most hope-filled promises in the Bible is found in today’s verses. They remind us that, through Christ, we are not merely improved but completely transformed. Paul wrote, “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person”. The transformation described here is not an external behaviour modification, because it is a spiritual rebirth. When we place our faith in Jesus, our identity changes. A verse well known to us is the one that records what Jesus said to Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Being “born again” means just that, starting a new spiritual life. In His conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus compared a natural birth to a spiritual birth, both of which are necessary for a new believer. A baby has to be born into this world, after which they will go through many stages until they leave it, the process of the “womb to the tomb”. Similarly, a person’s spirit must be born into God’s world, His Kingdom, but with a big difference. A reborn spirit never dies. Instead, it inherits eternal life.

We are no longer defined by our past sins, failures, or shame. Instead, we are defined by Christ. We read another verse from Paul yesterday in Galatians 2:20, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”. In Christ, our story does not end with our past. It begins with His grace. Our old lives were represented by our separation from God, because they were ruled by sin and self. Our new lives represent a restored relationship, guided by the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote, “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives” (Romans 6:4). But what are these “new lives”? Well, we find that we have a new heart. Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart”. We will also find that we have a new mind. Romans 12:2, “Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect”. And pew-warming is not an option for us pilgrims because we have a new purpose. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago”.  Impatient people like me want all these good things right now, but thankfully, God is patient and kind, and He has given us His Spirit to renew and empower us to grow. 

Paul wrote, “all of this is a gift from God”. Becoming a new person is not earned. It is a gift of God’s grace. Paul emphasised this in Ephesians 2:8-9, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God”. We don’t clean up ourselves before we can come to God. Too many people say they are unworthy to come into God’s presence. But through His love and grace, He cleans us up when we come to Him. This truth keeps us humble and grateful. Our salvation is not the result of our efforts. Instead, it is the result of Christ’s finished work on the cross.

We are God’s children

“God … brought us back to himself through Christ”. In other words, we are reconciled to God through Jesus. I always picture in my mind two sides of a deep chasm, too wide to be bridged, or too deep to be scaled. On one side is God and His Kingdom, the place where we want to be. But we find ourselves on the other, too far away to cross the gap through our own efforts. Even the Redcoat soldier in 1689, being pursued by Jacobites, and who was reputed to have jumped across the raging River Garry at Killiecrankie in the Scottish Highlands, would never be able to jump the gap. There is only one Person who can connect us to God across the chasm, and that is Jesus. Colossians 1:19-20, “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross”. Because of what Jesus did for us, we are no longer enemies of God. But it gets better, because God adopted us as His children. 1 John 3:1, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognise that we are God’s children because they don’t know him”.

In 2 Corinthians 5:18, Paul wrote, “And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him”. Paul reminded his Corinthians readers that this is what they were tasked with. I write much about our mission as pilgrims because we contain within us the treasure of knowing Jesus. So what else can we do but tell others? We share the message of reconciliation with those around us at every opportunity. Walking through my local city centre this morning, I was struck by the apparent looks of misery and hopelessness imprinted on people’s faces. They, too, are stuck on the wrong side of the chasm, without hope and any vision for the future, but we have the message of the Good News about Jesus. We pray for opportunities to share it. Our new life is not meant to be private. It is meant to reflect Christ to others. So we live differently, we forgive freely, we love boldly, and we speak the truth gently. Our changed lives become living evidence of God’s grace.

There are some practical things we pilgrims can do in the light of our now being a “new person”. Firstly, we need to stop defining ourselves by our past. We have a natural tendency to say things like, “I’ve always been like that”. Or assume that what we do is the way we always do things. But by doing so, we forget that if we belong to Christ, we are a new creation, set free from the shackles of the past. Secondly, we must remember that salvation is a process we call sanctification. We renew our minds daily by reading the Bible, spending time in prayer, and being obedient to what God asks of us. Our verses from 2 Corinthians today remind us that Christianity is not self-improvement but divine transformation. God takes what was broken and makes it new. He restores what was lost, and He invites us to participate in His redemptive work. The old life is gone, and the new life has begun. And the amazing thing is that it is all a free gift from God.

Dear Father God. Thank You for making us new. We are “ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven”, and it is all because of Jesus. We reach out to You today in praise and worship. Amen.

Salvation At Last

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last— salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth— the one who accuses them before our God day and night. And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice! But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.””
Revelation‬ ‭12:10-12 NLT

The time has finally arrived. With the ejection of the devil from Heaven, the Kingdom of God can finally be established. With it comes those attributes of His Kingdom, salvation and power. And, to fulfil the prophetic Scriptures, Christ Himself will rule and reign.

John saw in his vision that the devil was adopting the role of accuser, and recorded that fact in his writings. But accusing God’s people of what? Having been ejected from Heaven because of his sin, the last thing the devil wanted when he arrived on earth, was to find out that God had some of His children living there, covered by His love and grace. But to the devil’s “great anger” he did indeed find out that God’s grace through His Son, Jesus, had provided a remedy for sin even outside of Heaven. And so at every opportunity, he searched out, and continues to search out, God’s people, those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Once he has found a Christian, he waits, he tempts, and tries to get them to commit sin. If they fall he can then accuse them of being sinful like himself.

The story of Job gives us a fascinating insight into what the devil gets up to. We see in Job 1 that a conversation developed between God and satan about this Godly man, Job. We read in Job 1:7, ““Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan. Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”” The plot pans out with Job afflicted by loss of family and fortune, and finally with boils. But through it all, the devil finds nothing in which to accuse Job of. We read in Job 1:22, “In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.” Job defeated the devil through his testimony. We Christians have an even greater opportunity to defeat the devil because we are covered “by the blood of the Lamb”. 

I don’t know about you, my readers, but the devil tries to attack me by resurrecting thoughts and scenarios from my life in the past, trying to bring me down with thoughts of shame and guilt. But I have a powerful weapon – through the blood of Jesus I am no longer the person I was. I am a new person, washed in “the blood of the Lamb”.We read in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” There is a picture of the flood of humanity travelling through their life along a road that is unknown to us pilgrims. It’s an easy road to see and follow, and it requires no effort to stay on it. To “go with the flow” is an expression often used today and it applies to most people we are likely to meet. Matthew recorded an illustration Jesus used about life choices, referring to gates and roads. We read in Matthew 7:13-14, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” But we pilgrims discovered a narrow gate in life. It was difficult to find and open. But through the grace of God, find it we did, and we chose to open it. On the other side was a narrow path that twists and turns into the distance. Today as we journey along that path, we don’t know what is ahead, and we find that the devil does his utmost to get us to return to the “broad” way. From our verses today we read about those pilgrims who have travelled this path before us. Pilgrims so intent on following that path that they have forfeited their lives rather than return to the other way. There will be rejoicing in Heaven as the fast-tracked martyrs arrive, undefeated by their adversary. There is an old song, referred to as a Negro Spiritual, based, in part, on the book of Revelation, and it refers to saints marching into Heaven, and one line the singers belt out is, “I want to be in that number”. I think all us pilgrims can agree on that!

Dear Lord and Father, we thank You that You are preparing a place for us in our Heavenly home. We thank You for Your love and grace, giving us time to complete our journeys. We thank You that in Christ we are new creations, fit to be called the children of God. Amen.