“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. “But forget all that-it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. Want to hear the good news? He has already begun! He could have chosen another creature to bestow this honor and privilege but He chose the human and the least we could do is allow Him to do His great work in us. God, the Creator of the universe wants to make us like Himself! I hope you can grasp the full picture and what it entails. But the beautiful part is that God wants to make us pure and holy like Himself. The closer we get to God the more disinterested we will become to indulge in our former sins. It means that if we were vile, impatient, easily angered, lustful, liars, gossipers, idolatrous, proud, envious, thieves, and more that we put it all out of our lives and don’t practice it anymore. What does this mean? This means that our old self is put to death and we become new people. The Lord promises to give us new hearts and new minds when we decide to surrender our lives to Him. “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.” “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.” “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh” “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away behold, all things are become new.” This new beginning closes the door to our past and opens the door to eternity. We have so much to look forward to because God cleanses us from all sin and makes us more like Himself. The future holds the blessings of the Lord and there is assurance in that, no matter what troubles may lay ahead. What God has for us is good and beautiful. Who doesn’t want a new beginning that brings so much good to our lives? But perhaps the most rewarding part is that we become completely new a new creation.įorget about the past, that has been erased for good. We don’t just become better people, but we find peace, love, and joy. And what’s more, from that day onward, we experience daily changes in our lives that make us more like Christ in every way. The good news is that we don’t have to wait for this change, we can have this new beginning any day, anywhere. With His great sacrifice on the cross and His victory over death, we can have a new life in this life and in the life to come. When Christ came to earth as a man, His goal was to change the hearts and minds and lives of every single human being to walk this world then and now.
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