An Amazing Transformation

We will have days when we live well and other days when we struggle. We will have times when we seem to have conquered our Temptations and then other times when it seems like one after another, we fall to them. Fortunately, none of these things are indicators of our true status before God .

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

2Corinthians 5:17–18.

God has the standard and it’s a clear and simple one. If anyone is in Christ, he/she is a new creation. So that’s the only question we have to answer for ourselves today, are we in Christ? What does that mean?

It’s so important to continue to bring ourselves back to the foundation of our new life with God. We live today only as a result of what Jesus did for us when he died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead to demonstrate that God‘s life giving power is stronger than any sinful action we can take

It is all a gift from God, thank goodness. Our focus each day is first of all to believe that all that Jesus did was more than sufficient for all that we have done or failed to do. Our action is to receive all that God is giving.

God is giving forgiveness. He’s giving reconciliation. He’s giving us himself. And he’s giving us a ministry of living in such a way that we reconcile with others around us in our personal relationships and do everything we can to introduce them to God, so they can be reconciled through what Jesus has done for them as well. Is that our focus today in a practical way?

Loving God, we are so grateful for what Jesus has done for us on the cross. We’re so grateful for the depth of your love that couldn’t look past us, but had to do whatever it took to make a way for us to live in loving relationship with you, no matter how far we had strayed. Our gratitude is deep and we pray that our actions today will reflect that.

Keep us, we pray, from being distracted by many other things. Whether we work or play or rest or whatever we do, we pray today that our minds will be drawn again and again to your great love so our thoughts, our emotions, our words, and our actions can reflect that in every encounter we have. Amen

The old has passed away and behold the new has come. Isn’t that refreshing, isn’t that encouraging? Let’s live in the joy of that truth today.