From Death to Life

It is important for us to begin our thinking with our old self being dead, which means we are completely new "in Christ".  Often our thinking can go to changing our old patterns of life or improving who we are.  It seems that our culture is obessesed with being better and always working on yourself to be someone better, more beautiful, more successful, smarter, or richer.  The Gospel comes at life a whole different way, your old self was so bad that it could not be improved on or cleansed it must be crucified.  I have to admit my past has caught up with me too many times, where I then became focused on changing who I was in those circumstances rather than realizing that the old man is dead and gone.

If we begin our thinking that our old man or woman is dead, then we will look toward who God is for us and who we are in Him.  We need His thoughts and perceptions, rather than returning to the land of familiar about who we have been (especially when it is a negative).  A great place to begin is to realize that we are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, Christ, and even the Father living in us.  As a mobile-carrier of God Himself you are far beyond ordinary or deficient.  As we rest from trying to fight the negatives in our lives or trying to make the Old Man better, we can begin to hear God's voice releasing newness of life.

Resting from trying to save ourselves goes against the tide of our world who are constantly striving to be better, be stronger, be tougher, be more valuable, etc..  Resting is about posturing our heart to receive salvation and freedom realizing that we will never be able to save ourselves.  The deceitfulness of sin leads us to stuck in places that we need saving from, whether it be from a loveless marriage, a bad job situation, a financial jam, problems with kids, discouragement, or poor decisions about our future.

Honestly, giving on working on the Old me seems like a cop out and getting out of something I am supposed to be doing.  I can see a lot of negatives about my current way of living and this then leads to a striving to fix the old self.  Even in spiritual areas like I need to trust God more, I need to have more faith, I need to be more loving, and I need to be bolder in my faith.  These all sound like good areas to improve on but as soon as I begin to strive to improve myself in these areas I have been deceived.  The New Man I am "in Christ" always trusts God and is increasing in walking in trust.  We need to understand that to be a New Man or New Woman in Jesus does not mean that we are not growing because we need to come into full maturity "in Christ" (Ephesians 4:13).

Let's not work on the negatives in our lives but exchange them for God's thoughts and perspectives.

Old Man is Dead,
Bret