New

I love the idea of newness. A new book when you open it for the first time and hear the binding crack. A new idea or concept that pushes me to seek out greater knowledge. A new friend that you feel like you've known your whole life when in reality it's only been days. And even the thought of a new year excites me.
I often think that the idea of "resolutions" has become so overused that there is no incentive any longer to even follow through with what was resolved. But, I still get excited when I think about starting a brand new year. It's a fresh opportunity to begin doing things that I've wanted to try every single day and yet fail because it's too overwhelming. And, even though that excitement may only last a few weeks and then it's back to the mundane, the fact that I can be faithful to what I resolved to do gives me hope that those few weeks can turn into much more.
One of the new things that I have been realizing is the way that God teaches his children and genuinely changes them at the very core of who they are. It's not superficial or shallow...it reaches to the very core of the person and transforms their understanding of God, of people, of the universe He created. Stepping into that new understanding often feels like stepping into a new world because it is so refreshing to look at things that are so ordinary and see something absolutely breathtaking. I praise God that He has been so faithful to do that in my heart...to finish the work He began in me. He loves me enough to change me and that change brings a new excitement to love Him and fear Him and walk in obedience.
I wonder how God looks at us. We are not mundane or ordinary because He formed our very being and created us in our mother's womb. He knows the potential we have as His children who have His spirit at work in us. He knows how deeply we can be changed by Him through His Word and His Spirit. He knows that because of Christ, we are no longer who we used to be. Once sinners and enemies of Him, we are now His sons and daughters.

We are a NEW creation.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therfore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

The former life we lived, the bondage we were in to sin, the eternal damnation that was ours....it has passed. It's gone.

The NEW has come. The new life of freedom in Him, of becoming like Him, of living with HOPE. This is the life that we can walk in as followers of Jesus Christ.

He not only asks us to obey, or to follow a list of do's and dont's--He changes our hearts so that we have no greater desire than Him and that obedience becomes our greatest joy.

As we begin this new year, let's live in this newness. Let's live lives of rejoicing and gladness that we have been made new and that our former lives have passed away. Let's not just talk about it...let's live like we've been given a new life! Jesus Christ died so that we can have this new life...let us not make his death be in vain. We are NEW!

You take an ordinary day

And turn it in to flowers like the month of May

And you see all my pain

And cry over it for hours 'til I'm new again

You make me NEW

~Bethany Dillon