March 17, 2022 NEW THINGS HAVE COME
2 Corinthians 5:14-17 “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
In this passage, Paul gives an amazing testimony; what he says presents a totally new view on life. Paul had ‘concluded’ that the love of Christ controlled him-and that should be our conclusion as well. The issue of who or what controls us is the major deal of our life. It is human nature for one to live for himself, but we have been given a new nature, a nature that is led by the Spirit. Jesus died for us and rose again that we might have life and that we might be made new; when He died, we died to a life without God. God accepted the death of His Son as the sacrifice for the sins of all; now we are dead to sin, and now we can live for Him who died and rose again on our behalf. (We can as believers revert back to living according to self, but we do so by choice.) Now, our relationships should be based not on the flesh, but on the Spirit who indwells each believer. The Spirit is to be the power and inspiration for how we live, and that is to be the determining factor in how we view others and how we relate to others. The Spirit of God living in us enables us to see others as God sees them, and it enables us not to react to the actions of others when they do or say something that would have aggravated us in the past. It is amazing, but God says that if we are in Christ, we are a new creature-a new species of man; old things-who we use to be-has passed away, and new things-the new us-have come. The life we have in Christ is not a refurbished life, but a new life; a life that takes us out of a life that lives according to the flesh, according to self. Sadly, many believes find themselves living and responding much like those who do not know God, who live according to their flesh. We have been wrongly conditioned to believe that even though we claim to know God as our Savior, we remain under the influence of our sin nature. The truth that we must grasp is that the power of sin has been broken and it no longer has power over us; we can now walk and live in newness of life; we can now live according to the Spirit; and we can live life out of the brand new nature that God has given to us. If we do choose to sin, we confess it, turn from it, and continue to walk according to the Spirit. May we walk in newness of life; we have been made new.
Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; yet it is no longer I who live, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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