“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 TLB)
New… fresh, novel, unused, “of a kind never before existing”.
Don’t we all like the thought of something being new?
A new car, a new friend, a new idea, a new baby… the list could on!
But a new life? After all I have experienced…after all the stuff life has thrown at me?
Most days I feel far from new!
I confess, it is hard to see myself as new. Honestly, I feel far from new.
I feel tired, saggy, worn, weary, embarrassed, and slightly bruised from the journey.
My feelings scream anything and everything but new!
Truth… in my own flesh, after all these years, there is no newness.
The old is very visible and very felt!
YET… His word is Truth and in His Word He declares over us:
In Christ, you ARE new! The old is gone!
This Truth has nothing to do me; yet, everything at the same time.
My newness has nothing to do with the life I’ve lived, the journey I have walked, the wounds I have received.
The newness has everything to do with the life Christ lived, His wounds, His death, and HIS resurrection.
My feeling twist my understanding of this Truth.
My feelings prevent me from walking in the fullness of this Truth.
My feelings scream and seek to paralyze me from living this Truth.
My feelings distract. My feelings betray me. My feelings blind me.
So how do I walk in newness when my feelings scream the opposite?
I turn my eyes to the Truth. I read it. I speak it. I pray it…. even when I do not feel it:
I AM a new person! The old is gone! The new has come!
Simply and only because of what Christ has done and the life changing truth that…
I BELONG TO HIM! I am His! HE makes me new!
I put this on repeat. I recite the Truth again and again… day after day…
regardless of how I feel, regardless of what the day throws at me, regardless of me!
I speak it until I believe it in the core of my being.
I speak it because of the magnitude of what Christ did to seal this Truth.
I speak it because regardless of how I feel… I am, indeed, NEW:
fresh, novel, of a kind never existing before He gave His life for my old one!
Oh Lord…. “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)
Margaret Franklin 