To Encourage You

Colossians 3:9-10 “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

One of the harsh realities of physical life is that day by day we just get older and older.  Often little children look forward to this. They know that as they get older, they will be able to do things that they can’t currently do – like drive a car or play on the high school football team.  But inevitably this goes the other way, and at some point we hit the prime of our life, which means everything after that tends to be sub-prime, at least with our bodies.  More aches, more pains, and more trips to the doctor’s office are the result, and if you’re anywhere close to my age, you know what that’s about. 

Spiritual life is just the opposite, which is a wonderful truth.  In the verse above Paul is talking about those who have “put on the new self.”  Something wonderful had happened to them at the moment of salvation, when “all things (had) become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Elsewhere the Bible describes this as “the new birth” (John 3:3), and “newness of life” (Romans 6:4). 

Newness is a settled fact for the believer.  Wonderfully, we can forget what was behind – all the sin, the failure, the guilt – and live in the reality that all has been forgiven, the slate has been wiped clean, and we have a brand-new beginning of a brand-new life. However, as time goes on in this new life, we find that this life isn’t one in which the process of becoming old with an inevitable march towards death just begins over. No, with this new life we find that we are ever being “renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).  Our thought life is renewed as we meditate on Scripture (Romans 12:2). We find that the mercies of God are “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). God continually puts a “new song” in our mouths (Psalm 40:3) as we grow in our knowledge of Him and His glorious attributes and love. 

I heard one preacher put it this way: “eternal novelty.”  That means we will never get tired of Jesus. We’ll never get bored with Him. Because He is infinite and we are finite, there will, for all eternity, be new wonders to learn about Him and from Him. 

Newness of life, renewal day by day: it’s a wonderful exchange for the same old things that this world affords – things that are never again new from the moment they appear on the scene.