That’s the point, new, that most Christian’s miss. When we accept Jesus as Lord we become a new creation. It’s not something we can earn, or something we can ‘purchase’, it is the free gift that comes when we become part of the Family of God. But it is a gift that will require our response.
The definition of new creation, in this case, means a new manner of being, something that didn’t exist before. The rest of the sentence reads, “… old things have passed away, behold all things are new.” Clean slate. New beginning. It’s not a matter of how you feel… it is a fact – deal done. We are made a new creation.
Do not read ‘new creation’ as never making another mistake or all problems evaporate. Not the case. We all are, after all, human thus prone to making mistakes – willful and not. However, now we have a foundation for change, a foundation to build upon. We are able to overcome. We don’t need to be, to feel defeated. Actually, the new creation reality gives us hope. And hope is hard to break no matter how small.
Our responsibility is to discover what this new creation is, in our individual case. It does demand a responsibility from us. The responsibility is to grow and mature and not need to be constantly babied, though there is a season that this does occur. Fortunately we have a handbook that helps us in growing – it’s called the Bible, the inspired Word of God. It would be unfair to provide us a new beginning and not give us a way to understand what has happened and a way to mature. This begins our ‘what’s next’ quest.
Being a new creation is never ending – we will always be engaged in the discovery and practice of being a new creation. It isn’t always easy but it is empowering because we aren’t alone in this.
(This will be a subject that I’ll return to often since all I’ve done now is to introduce the subject.)
