Pastor’s Pen Pulpit
December 30, 2001
“A NEW YEAR’S REMINDER”
Therefore
if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away;
behold, new things have come.
The coming New Year serves as a reminder to God’s people. The year ahead has never been tasted. It is a year yet to be experienced.
As sinners dominated and controlled by the old man, we didn’t have the slightest connection with God. When Jesus came into our lives we become new creations (II Corinthians 5:17).
As a new creation we have new connections all the way – a new commander-in-chief over our lives. We have been blessed with new desires. We walk in newness of life (Romans 6). We have new friends. A new destination. When God’s people came out of Egypt and entered the wilderness they said, “We have not passed this way before. Likewise the new creation looks at the nature of his life and says, “I have not been this way before.”
The Apostle Paul is a great example of this. He was a man with a vendetta against Christ and Christians yet when he met Jesus Christ on the Damascus Freeway, the total scheme of his life was completely altered. The things he once loved in the flesh he now hated. The things he once hated, he now loved.
The one word we can write across Paul’s life is the word “new”. “New” is the word that describes our lives, perhaps not as emboldened as in Paul, but it is there just the same.
I have a great deal of skepticism toward one who claims to be a child of God yet there is nothing new about his existence. The old seems to remain: the old conversation, the old way of looking at things, old habits, and so on.
I say to each of us as Paul said to the Corinthians in II Corinthians 13, “Beloved, examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith.”
May our Heavenly Father bless you in this coming year. Remember, we haven’t passed this way before!
Love to you all,