NEW… a new life and a new thing
I had the privilege of sharing a message with the students at Full Life’s Real Life Student Ministries last Wednesday. Here’s the basic content of it roughly adapted from my notes, hope it encourages you today.
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For something to become NEW it cannot retain any amount of what it once was. It’s not a transition, it’s a transformation. It’s not evolutionary it’s revolutionary.
“(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! (6:1)As God’s partners we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it.”
NEW LIFE
BELONG TO JESUS
We belong to Jesus in an act of faith and a life of commitment. It’s lived out in our words, actions, thoughts, interactions, love, and service. One of the best ways to belong to Jesus is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36).
I am not my own! To be my own would be to belong to this world and to adhere to its standards—ones of selfishness and self-centeredness. Belonging to Jesus is a selfless endeavor.
I often pray: “Lord, I give you all that I am, all that I have, and all that I can and ever do. I am Yours!” Belonging to Jesus is surrender through and through.
If we truly belong to Jesus, everything we were is now old and gone!
OLD LIFE IS GONE
2 Cor 6:1 says “not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it.” We hold the choice to return to our old life. To either belong to Jesus and leave the old life “gone” or to return to it again—the choice is ours.
Your old habits, old sins, old negative influences, old attitude, old lust, old jealousy, old self-image, old idols and vices, old lifestyle and standards. It’s gone, in the past, forgotten. You’re made new, a new life.
“…throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.”
Throw off the old, the former, what you once were. Put on the new.
I had a friend who rarely washed his clothes. Instead he relied on his bottle of febreeze to stretch his laundry much further than he should have. Are you guilty of “febreezing” yourself? Do you cover up with a fresh smell every once and a while but quickly fade right back to your nasty old ways? “Newness” cannot be faked.
God has more for us than that, He has something NEW, something full and good…
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
IT HAS BEGUN!
If you belong to Jesus, your NEW life has only just begun. We’ve only just started so don’t be discouraged when your imperfections arise. We all mess up, make mistakes, but we confess/repent/press on. And be encouraged! Because the God who “began a good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished…” (Philippians 1:6).
NEW THING
Maybe you’re already living the extraordinary “NEW” life described in 2 Corinthians 5:17. God’s done great things in your life, you’ve had incredible experiences, etc, etc
Know that God wants to do a NEW thing.
God was reminding His people about all the amazing things He had done for them. How he had provided for them and given them safety, victory in battle, and so many other miraculous things. But then in the middle of remdinging them about all his exploits He says this…
“But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?…”
God wants you to know that what He’s done in your life so far is nothing compared to what He’s going to do… and what He’s already started doing. He’s about to do a NEW THING.
It’s time to move forward from what God has done for you in the past, it’s time to press on toward what God is going to do and what He has already started doing.
The God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ever ask or imagine (Eph 3:20) wants to do something NEW and incredible in you and through you!
Follower of Christ, pastor, worship leader, designer, web developer, guitarist, brother, son, and husband. I love life and I strive to put God and others before myself.
