A New Creation

Ever feel like it's time for a fresh start? If you're born again, that's exactly what has happened to you.

When we come to Christ, the Bible tells us that we have become new. Put to death with Christ, made free from chains of addiction and fear, raised with Him in newness of life, even told that it is as if we were seated in the Heavens already with Christ, we are totally new. There could not be more "newness" than that of the new man. And I think that many of us miss this because our experience is that, upon being saved and born again, not too terribly much seemed to change. 

If that is you, a deeper look at this passage and its precise message is necessary. Understand what is meant by "the new has come." In some translations it reads, “All things have become new.” Let the message fully sink in; meditate on it constantly, memorize what it says. 

The point of the story is not just that the old man is dead and gone, but that the new man is really NEW. This “newness” is important. Not the surface-only newness of a snake that, through the shedding of its skin, produces only a temporarily shinier, cleaner version of the exact same snake—what we're looking at here is the newness of a creature that, having entered into its cocoon a caterpillar confined to painfully slow travel low to the ground, emerges a butterfly, held back by the limitations of the former life no longer, set free to fly in newness of life. And your transformation, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is even grander than that of the butterfly. A butterfly still has boundaries and limitations, common to all natural creatures, whereas the new believer is a new creation that has been given power that goes beyond the mortal into the supernatural.

It is conceivable that, having a will of its own and vivid memories of the only life it's ever known, that butterfly might attempt to continue to crawl like a caterpillar. But God is gracious to the butterfly, not only recreating the body but renewing its mind as well. The new creature, given a fresh start, has no memory of its former life; its only impulse is the drive to go and do what it has been set free to do. It is a butterfly; it does what butterflies do, not what caterpillars do.

In our case, it might seem the butterfly has an advantage there. We may still feel drawn back…there is an element of will that may be getting in our way. Dwelling in those memories of our former life, and possessing the misunderstanding that we are more snake than butterfly, we may remain stuck in old patterns. We must reorient our minds and accept our fresh start! Reject the notion that you haven't changed; embrace the newness of the new creation in Christ, and live in victory!

I also note that, unlike the butterfly, this new creature that we have become has not been created to live for itself. That was what the old life was about; the new life should be lived for the One that gave His life to set us free. The new life is unto Him and for Him, it does not revolve around me. Fleshly experiences are a thing of the past; we must patiently train our minds to the spiritual. We are not limited by our situation, we are not limited by our past. Like Peter walking on the water towards Christ we are only limited by our faith in the truths expressed by God. And the truth is that you are new, reborn unto new life that is as different from the old as it could be. 

If you are born again, you have been set free, reborn into a life so new that every last element of the old self is eradicated, erased as if it had never existed. We can live freely in newness of life!