The presents are unwrapped, the decorations are put away and the endless parade of cookies, cakes and pies have been gobbled up. It’s the start of another new year. New outfits to wear, new diets to try, and new resolutions to make and eventually break around mid-January, if you’re like the majority of us. “This is my year to really be good,” you tell yourself. “I’m off coffee. No more desserts after dinner. And I really AM going to use that treadmill Uncle Fred bought me for Christmas.”
Well while you’re in hot pursuit of a new and improved you, stop for a moment and think about the newness of life available through Jesus Christ. For starters, how about the new birth (a.k.a. “being saved” )
Romans 10:9, 10
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
It Is Written in the scriptures that in order to be saved one must confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead. Believing and confessing–not very strenuous activities you have to admit, yet look at the powerful results they yield: righteousness and salvation. God has provided eternal life through His son Jesus Christ (John 3:16). He did all the hard work; we get the benefits by believing.
In the Bible, born-again ones are called new creatures in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Sometimes a new hair style, new clothes make you feel like a whole new person—for about one week. The effect lasts as long as fashion trends, or your next trip to the hair salon. But in Christ, we are made new creatures and the effects are lasting. You might look pretty snazzy in that new sweater from Aunt Edith, but it can’t compare to being a new creature in Christ.
Further, God’s Word says that this new man is “created in righteousness and true holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24). Nice threads, spiritually speaking.
In this appearance-obsessed society, you can slim down with powders, shape up with toning lotions, erase wrinkles with collagen treatments and vacuum up excess fat with liposuction if you’re too lazy to exercise. It’s part of our society’s renewal ritual each January. And while there’s nothing wrong in wanting to be healthy, we do ourselves a disservice when we work only to improve the physical with scarcely a thought for the spiritual.
I Timothy 4:8
“For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things…”
“New and refined in ’99” may be a popular slogan, but it can’t compare with all God has provided for us in the new birth.
So as you plunge into the New Year, determined to pump iron and faithfully say “no” to all things decadent, take a minute to remember all the wonderful, marvelous, implacable NEW things God has made us in His Son Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:18
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Happy New Year!