New Identity - Part 1

What happens, exactly, when a person genuinely surrenders to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

Well, books have been written.  The greatest Book, of course, is the Holy Bible, the Scriptures given to us by God’s own Holy Spirit.  And the Bible has much to say about the new life, the new identity we have in Jesus.  Most of that specific information will be found in the New Testament, the second major section of the Bible.

For example, Scripture says:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God…  (2 Corinthians 5:17,18a)

Everything becomes new.  All of us who’ve been born again can testify to that miracle, that glorious experience.  And we soon notice that we have a new way of life, a walk of faith and by faith in Jesus.

A brand new path.

When we are born into God’s family as new believers, something awesome takes place inside.  We become new at the very core of our being.

To see the living God is to be changed forever.  To accept any truth given to us by God is to be forever altered by that truth.  And the more often we go into His Presence to see & hear Him, the more awesome the changes in us will become.  And some day even our very bodies will be transformed, when we see Jesus as He is, at the very throne of God.

But what about the sins we may still see in our lives?   Nothing attacks our faith as much as sin in our own lives.  Every sin is like an expression of defiance, a statement of unbelief, a kind of evidence that God’s grace must not have done anything real and lasting in our lives.  Sin is devastating to our faith.

So what should we do if we see a repeated sin in our lives?  What should we do if we discover a sin that we were blind to before?

If we stumble, should we just lie down right there, stay down and die?  If we sin, should we just give up and lose all hope?   If we fail the first three times to kick an old habit, should we just go back and live like the dead again?  What if we fail thirty times, or seventy times?

Think about it, in light of what God says everywhere in Scripture.

To be turned back by a stone in the path is to never have had the will to make the journey in the first place.  If a stone is in the path, pick up the stone and toss it out of the way.  If it’s too big to pick up, then walk around it.  If it’s too wide to go around, then jump over it.  If it’s too high to jump over then climb over it.

If it’s too high to climb over, too wide to go around, and too heavy to remove, then it isn’t a stone at all, but a wall or a mountain placed there by the enemy.  If it’s a wall, then by God’s grace, you should simply walk right through it.  If it turns out to be a mountain, then our Lord has already told you what to do.  Simply tell it, in the name of Jesus, to take a flying leap.  It will be removed.

As the old, old saying goes, where there is a will, there is a way.  And we have the will of God on our side, in every struggle against sin.  Let us therefore join our will with His — and never, never, never give up on what He’s called us to accomplish in Jesus Christ.