2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

TO PONDER

Some days I don't feel very new. In fact since turning forty a couple of years ago, I have begun to feel my age a bit more acutely. I have again had faltering attempts to improve my fitness by going to the gym, I have found that I need to be a little more discerning when it comes to eating spicy food and there are certainly more grey hairs on my head than have any right to be there. All the things one might do to change or reverse the slow progression of time are a process, they take time themselves. I may be able to cover up the grey hairs with some kind of hair colouring treatment but it's just a cover up. I might slowly improve my fitness over time, but if I stop exercising, the unfit me reasserts itself.

I think we often think of our lives as disciples like this also. We know that there is a process, something that we often call 'sanctification', the process of being conformed into the likeness of Jesus, of becoming more like him. We know that we don't always get this right, we sense that somehow it is harder that it should be to live and love like Jesus did, that we somehow have not quite achieved the ultimate goal. An yet when we are in Christ, Paul tells us that the old is gone and the new has come. We are not both sinner and saint as Martin Luther often said, but in Christ we are no longer sinners and we are made whole and righteous in Christ.

The challenge it think is not in striving to be more holy or to sin less or to love more. It is simply this, to remain in Christ. For when we are in Christ, the old is gone - completely gone, 100% removed and the new is here - completely here installed, uploaded and ready to go. Find creative ways to remain in Christ every day and see what He can do with the new you!

PRAYER:Lord Jesus, so much of life seems to be designed specifically to distract me and to keep me from remaining in you. Help me to remember that in you, I am a new creation. Help me to learn what it means to be made new and restored. To be free from my sin and the fear of death and to know that I have eternal life in you. May the way I live each day show something of my confidence in the new life I have found in you to all those you bring my way. Amen

Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle