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A New You

 

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We like new things.  New cars, new clothes, new friends.  It is partly because we get tired of the old.   We like new things because they are not broken, they work and work well.  We like new things because they are untarnished, spotless, pleasing to the eye.

 

The problem with new things is that they do not stay new.  Cars and clothes decay. Friendships blossom, but with time you will discover that your friends are not untarnished or spotless.  

 

If you are like most people, what you want most, is a new you.  You would settle for a new set of abs, a new job, or a new outlook on your current set of circumstances…..but in the end, your “perfect job” delivers some stress, your new outlook becomes stale, and most likely your abs will not travel with you into your eighty’s.  From the moment we are born our bodies begin a journey that is sure to end in decay, and our minds are subject to falsehoods that must be detangled from the truth. No wonder we long for something new.

 

The good news is - there is such a thing as a new you.  A you that from the moment of birth embarks on a journey that will culminate in perfection that never ends.  An untarnished, spotless, pleasing - you. If that doesn’t sound like you, that is because it is not.

 

God did not send Jesus into this world to improve our broken lives, but to give us new life.  An untarnished, spotless, pleasing life, is the gift Christ offers to all who believe in Him. As He laid down His life to atone for our sin, he calls us to by faith to lay down our lives and rise again anew.  For those who have been born again in Christ, that is what we are- new. Yet while we are positionally new, we have not yet cast off the flesh. Part of us, the flesh that was not regenerated and never intended to last, will continue to exist and to decay until we shed this shell of flesh and the new man alone remains and is fully revealed.

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Meanwhile, we do not feel new, at least not all the time.  We must remind ourselves that we are. Even though we are new creations, our flesh can pick up dead weight, habits that weigh us down, falsehoods that make it difficult to see with the new set of eyes we have been given.  Some of us even go as far as to wonder if we need a new, new life.

 

Old life condemns, new life convicts.  Old life says “You are almost there”, new life says “It is finished.”  Old life lives to accomplish, new life lives because it has been accomplished.  Both lives strive, only one rests.

 

It is a new year.  I hope it makes you long for a new you.  I hope you realize the new you that you long for, is...and if it is not, I pray that you will ask Christ to make you new through faith in Him.  You will not appear untarnished, not to others, and certainly not to yourself; the new you is still housed in a shell of flesh. But to the One whose sight stretches from eternity to eternity, the beauty of those in Christ is unveiled.

 

What we need this year is not something new but something older than time itself, we need God.  In Christ, this need is met. This is the Good News, that will never grow old.

 

Happy New Year- is too small, Happy New Life :)

“And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

Revelations 21:5 (ESV)

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