To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Do you like new things?  Did you receive some new things for Christmas this year, maybe some new clothes, new tools, new books, or other nice new things?   Do you like new fashions, new technological inventions, or the latest new fads of one type or another?  So often new things breathe excitement into our lives.  It’s part of our humanity, this desire for new things.  We get tired or bored of the way things have been, so we look to new things as the remedy.  As the current things, whatever they are, wear out, break, or just become blasé, we desire the new to replace the old.  But do you realize that the Bible tells us that it’s possible for a new YOU?   In the verse above we are told that when anyone becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, he or she becomes a whole new creation.  It’s all boiled down to the simple phrase, “the new has come.”  

So, WHAT’S so new for these people, you might ask. The simple answer: everything that matters.  For example, when a person gives their life to Jesus Christ, they suddenly have a new Lord.  They no longer live for themselves, for now their decisions and their choices are made with a focus on the question, “What would Jesus have me to do?” That wasn’t even a question they asked before they became a Christian. It’s all so brand new.   

A believer has new senses by which he or she perceives all of life. For example, they have new eyes. They see things in God’s Word that they were blind to before that time.  They perceive the world around them as under the sovereign hand of God.  And as they look at all the Creation, they no longer see trees, flowers, and clouds as beautiful in and of themselves. Rather, in all of it, they see the very glory of God.  They have new ears, as they now hear the Shepherd as He leads them. It’s a voice they were deaf to in the past.  They have a new mouth that speaks of their new King and tells others of the gospel of God, something they never gave voice to before.  And now they have a new song, as psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs take root deep in their new hearts that have been transformed by God’s gift of a new Spirit and that issue forth from their new lips.  They have new feet, walking in the Way of God, and they have new hands, by which they seek to serve Him.  All of this elicits forth from a new mind. They are no longer “conformed to this world.” Rather, it is by this new mind that they have been transformed, and with it they are able to “discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

When someone turns to Christ, they have brand new desires.  They want to be with the people of God in the house of God listening to the teaching and preaching of the Word of God.  It’s all part and parcel of this brand-new life.  

And they have a new quality of life.  It’s called eternal life. It’s the very life of the eternal God that now resides within their hearts.  It’s a life lived in an awareness of God, a mind fixed on the promises of God, a heart bent on obedience to God, and a destiny in the everlasting presence of God.  It’s a life of everlasting novelty, lived with mercies of God that are new every morning. 

And all of this is shared with their new family.  Instantly, when anyone becomes a new person in Christ, they share their new reality with a world-wide family, people with whom they had no relationship before.  

In Ecclesiastes 1:9 we have the word of Solomon who summed up the futility of a life without God in the following words: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”  But that’s not the experience of the believer in any way, shape, or form!  Rather, the old is gone and the new has come, and the new will continue to come as we look to a new heaven and a new earth, places where the newness will never grow old (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ewIY2HKVBc).