Focus: What's New About You?

Text: 2Cor.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."

Whoever is in Christ is a brand new person. In the words of Christ, he is "born again." You become a new you in existence - a 'you' that has never existed before.

Christ in you means change and newness. You are radically altered - made anew. Whoever sees you sees a new you. You are changed from the inside out. You are neither patched up nor amended. You are not an improved you, but a whole new you. You have a new heart and spirit.

You are begotten by the Spirit of Christ. In another word, you are regenerated - that is, re-gene-d. You possess a new gene from God, or call it a Divine DNA, imparted to your spirit. You are a partaker of His nature.

Let me give you a picture from Act.3:10, for an illustration. Luke records, "And they KNEW that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with WONDER and AMAZEMENT at that which had HAPPENED unto him." The lame man had begged for alms for 'donkey' years and had been known by everyone. His face could not be mistaken nor misplaced. But then nothing short of a miracle happened to him that totally changed his life. He could then walk and did things that he couldn't do before. He became a wonder. Everyone who knew him before could not but wonder at the change they saw in him. He was a wonder to behold. They noticed that he was still the same person that they once knew, but now looking different. He was no longer what he used to be, a cripple hanging around the temple gate and asking for charity. He was now a new man, so to speak.

What's new about you since you believed in Christ? Any noticeable or remarkable changes? What have people been saying about you? Can it be said that you are now a wonder to your family, relations, friends, colleagues, acquaintances or onlookers? Who is noticing, if in reality something has happened to you by the power of God? What's the testimony of your life?

In closing, let me make another point. There is a sense in which you have changed by spiritual rebirth, but there's also a sense in which you are still changing. You are work in progress. Apostle Paul captures it well in 2Cor.3:18. He says, "But we all, with open face BEHOLDING as in a glass the GLORY of the Lord, are CHANGED into the same image FROM GLORY TO GLORY, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." As you keep focusing on the glory of God by the agency of the Holy Spirit, you will metamorphose from glory to glory. In other words, you will keep changing. You will be able to lay hold of what you behold - God's glory. As you see, so you seize. As you constantly fix your gaze on the glory, you will keep moving up the ladder of divine ascendancy. Changed, yet changing. Delivered, yet being delivered. Repented, yet repenting. Believing and beholding and metamorphosing - all by the enabling Spirit of the Lord. Amen.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter