YOU ARE A NEW CREATURE!

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY MAY 22, 2020.

SUBJECT: YOU ARE A NEW CREATURE! 

Memory verse: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; all things are become new." (Second Corinthians 5 vs 17.)

READ: Romans 6 vs 3 - 11:

6:3: Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 

6:4: Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

6:5: For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,

6:6: knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

6:7: For he who has died has been freed from sin. 

6:8: Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 

6:9: knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 

6:10: For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 

6:11: Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

INTIMATION:

The New Creation concept  is adequately and clearly revealed to me when I realized that Jesus was recreated. Until then Christianity, as simple confession of Christ Jesus and the attendant forgiveness of sins, with the theological justification, has no sense of reality in it. But when I realized that Jesus was recreated, the real idea of our recreation came alive in me.

You see, Jesus was made sin with our sins. He became our substitute. He took our place to be a propitiation for our sins. We were crucified with Him. We died with Him. We were buried with Him. We were judged with Him. He went to the place where we should have gone, and He suffered there until the claims of justice against us were met, until all the claims were satisfied. Then the grave couldn't hold Him any longer.

Jesus is able to accomplish all He did because of the Holy Spirit operational in His life. The Scripture in Matthew 3 vs 16 says; “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightaway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.” The recreation or new creation is the quickening of the spirit of the believer by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and by whose power all the services are rendered, and the accomplishments are achieved. 

Because we were united with Christ in His death, our evil desires and bondage to sin died with Him. Now, united by faith with Him in His resurrection life, we have unbroken fellowship with God and freedom from sin’s hold on us. If we think of our old, sinful life as dead and buried, we have a powerful motive to resist sin, as we treat the desires and temptations of our old nature as dead. All these are made possible by the operation of the Holy Spirit in the believer.

Therefore, the behavior of a true Christian should be putting on the new nature you are recreated in, by accepting Christ and regarding the earthly nature as dead. We change our moral and ethical behavior by letting Christ (in His Spirit form) live within us, so that He can shape us into what we should be.

When you are dead to sin, it means we should have as little desire for improper worldly pleasures as a dead person would have. The power of sin over us died with Christ on the cross, and was nailed there, so we are free from that power. Before we confessed Jesus, our body of sin inherited from Adam often willingly cooperate with the power of sin at work in our life. Now we have confessed Christ, that power is defeated once and for all. 

Though we are no longer under sin’s power, God does not take us out of the world or make us robots, it’s true we will still feel like sinning, and sometimes we will sin. The difference is that before we were saved we were slaves to our sinful nature, but now we can choose to live for Christ, and that is why a truly born again Christian will always feel very sorry when he or she falls into sin, and will confess such sin because sin’s attraction has drastically reduced in his or her life. Upon confession and repentance, he or she is forgiven (First John 1 vs 9).

How then can we keep ourselves under check and not to let sin control the way we live, to not give in to its desires? We can take the following steps: (1) Identify our personal weaknesses, (2) recognize the things that tempt us, (3) stay away from sources of temptation, (4) practice self-restraint, (5) consciously invest our time in good habits and service, and (6) lean on God’s strength and grace through our indwelling Holy Spirit, as we learn to turn to Him in all things we do.

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You so much for the substitutionary work of Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ—our Messiah, for me, and for the gift of salvation, and redemption, and sanctification in Him. I pray for Your exceeding grace to live above sin, especially sins that have dominion over me, in Jesus’ Name I prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!