How can I experience a new life?
We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; so then the answer to the question 'How can I experience a new life?' is, 'if I become in Christ I will then have a new life' – great. Let’s do that –um-but what is in Christ?
Well, when we are in-Christ we no longer act the same way as most others; we are changed through changing our minds so that we can see and do the good things God wants for us and others (Romans 12:2). Being in-Christ is no longer thinking about ourselves.
Just before I first penned this article for the Nipawin Journal in 2008, I received an e-mail from an old friend of mine who works in a BC prison; I myself spent time in Stony Mountain Penn as a volunteer. We agreed that many of the fellows there who are stuck, unable to change, unable to be happy; the ones who are threatening and litigious are the people who seem to act upon ‘a perverse sense of entitlement.’
It is this sense of entitlement, among other things, that embodies the old life for each of us. It is this way of thinking that traps us. The new life is experienced only as we change our minds to put God, rather than ourselves, first. This is what it means to be in-Christ. It is simple but what can we do to get this new life? Well, nothing.
Jesus has already provided the new life for us. It is very much like Spring. When Spring has come, the temperature rises, the snow melts, the trees bud, the flowers bloom and there is nothing any of us can do about that. Spring has sprung.
However, we do have the choice to experience Spring or not. If we stay inside our house with the heat cranked up full blast; head outside wearing a parka, gloves and a toque; it doesn’t change the fact that Spring has come; it just means we are very uncomfortable and we don’t reap its benefits. The pre-Spring life is not worth living after Spring has come; likewise, the pre-Christian life is not worth living now that Christ has come.
So to this end I encourage us all through praying, meeting together, and reading our Bibles to take off our toques and mittens head out to church and let the Lord transform us into a new creation now that Spring has indeed sprung.
We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; so then the answer to the question 'How can I experience a new life?' is, 'if I become in Christ I will then have a new life' – great. Let’s do that –um-but what is in Christ?
Well, when we are in-Christ we no longer act the same way as most others; we are changed through changing our minds so that we can see and do the good things God wants for us and others (Romans 12:2). Being in-Christ is no longer thinking about ourselves.
Just before I first penned this article for the Nipawin Journal in 2008, I received an e-mail from an old friend of mine who works in a BC prison; I myself spent time in Stony Mountain Penn as a volunteer. We agreed that many of the fellows there who are stuck, unable to change, unable to be happy; the ones who are threatening and litigious are the people who seem to act upon ‘a perverse sense of entitlement.’
It is this sense of entitlement, among other things, that embodies the old life for each of us. It is this way of thinking that traps us. The new life is experienced only as we change our minds to put God, rather than ourselves, first. This is what it means to be in-Christ. It is simple but what can we do to get this new life? Well, nothing.
Jesus has already provided the new life for us. It is very much like Spring. When Spring has come, the temperature rises, the snow melts, the trees bud, the flowers bloom and there is nothing any of us can do about that. Spring has sprung.
However, we do have the choice to experience Spring or not. If we stay inside our house with the heat cranked up full blast; head outside wearing a parka, gloves and a toque; it doesn’t change the fact that Spring has come; it just means we are very uncomfortable and we don’t reap its benefits. The pre-Spring life is not worth living after Spring has come; likewise, the pre-Christian life is not worth living now that Christ has come.
So to this end I encourage us all through praying, meeting together, and reading our Bibles to take off our toques and mittens head out to church and let the Lord transform us into a new creation now that Spring has indeed sprung.
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