The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Corinthians 5:17,
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
"A new creation" rings to me of total transformation, a fresh start in a completely new and changed configuration. Not something patched up, fixed up or repaired.
Our ancestral parents, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. They had fellowship with God and communed with him face to face. With a free will they chose to turn from their creator and follow the temptation of the day – an act which communicated a lack of faith in what God had to say about the consequences.
This turn of events brought a nature to mankind that caused him to follow base desires and a selfish quest to indulge that which satisfies this nature, a "sin nature" or as Paul puts it "the flesh". As we read about the acts of the sin nature in Galatians 5 we recognize it for what it is: something all mankind has been enslaved to.
When Jesus Christ came to save sinners, he provided payment for our sin. Those who embrace him in faith have their sins forgiven as they cross over from death to life as Jesus puts it in John 5:24. But this is not all. In addition to having the penalty for our sins paid for, we have received the righteousness of God himself imbued to us: A standing with God that makes us completely acceptable to him.
His Holy Spirit has also possessed us, taking up his abode within our hearts and our bodies (literally), a deposit which guarantees our future as members of God's own family. As we read of the fruit the Holy Spirit produces in our lives we discover a new nature taking shape within us.
We become transformed from within as a result of this rebirth that Jesus told Nicodemus of in John 3. We are a new creation. This transformation begins within our lives at the time of our rebirth as God's children and is progressive. It does not find its conclusion until resurrection day when that old sin nature is finally and blissfully eradicated entirely from our lives.
We at times may not feel like a new creation, but the reality that we have begun this transformational process is the evidence that we are now a new creation, not that we have arrived yet, but that we find ourselves now moving in a new direction with change clearly taking place within our lives.
God is transforming us into the likeness of his Son. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
To me, what God has chosen to do in our lives is both exciting and wonderful: a new creation! How about you?
"A new creation" rings to me of total transformation, a fresh start in a completely new and changed configuration. Not something patched up, fixed up or repaired.
Our ancestral parents, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. They had fellowship with God and communed with him face to face. With a free will they chose to turn from their creator and follow the temptation of the day – an act which communicated a lack of faith in what God had to say about the consequences.
This turn of events brought a nature to mankind that caused him to follow base desires and a selfish quest to indulge that which satisfies this nature, a "sin nature" or as Paul puts it "the flesh". As we read about the acts of the sin nature in Galatians 5 we recognize it for what it is: something all mankind has been enslaved to.
When Jesus Christ came to save sinners, he provided payment for our sin. Those who embrace him in faith have their sins forgiven as they cross over from death to life as Jesus puts it in John 5:24. But this is not all. In addition to having the penalty for our sins paid for, we have received the righteousness of God himself imbued to us: A standing with God that makes us completely acceptable to him.
His Holy Spirit has also possessed us, taking up his abode within our hearts and our bodies (literally), a deposit which guarantees our future as members of God's own family. As we read of the fruit the Holy Spirit produces in our lives we discover a new nature taking shape within us.
We become transformed from within as a result of this rebirth that Jesus told Nicodemus of in John 3. We are a new creation. This transformation begins within our lives at the time of our rebirth as God's children and is progressive. It does not find its conclusion until resurrection day when that old sin nature is finally and blissfully eradicated entirely from our lives.
We at times may not feel like a new creation, but the reality that we have begun this transformational process is the evidence that we are now a new creation, not that we have arrived yet, but that we find ourselves now moving in a new direction with change clearly taking place within our lives.
God is transforming us into the likeness of his Son. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
To me, what God has chosen to do in our lives is both exciting and wonderful: a new creation! How about you?
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
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