If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; the
old has gone, the new has come.
1 Corinthians 5:17
What do you call one person who
has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? A Christian. What do you call two or more
people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? The church.
The church isn’t identified
by certain activities, a particular type of building, or even a set of
denominational beliefs. It is not sustained by membership, finances, or even
wise long-range planning. The church is the original idea and sole property of
Jesus Christ. Everything about it is His call. From membership to training programs,
it is characterized by three things: A new creation: As much as the world professes to like “new,” as in cars, clothes, and
fads, it doesn’t really doesn’t get it. We live on a planet of recycled ideas, old
sins, and failed theories (what else is evolution but tails and legs put on in
novel ways?). When it comes to “new,” God is in a class by Himself.
Three times in Scripture,
God creates something brand new out of absolutely nothing. The first time, in
Genesis, He used the invisible—words—to produce the visible: a perfect, mature
creation. The third time will be at the end of history when the present world
will completely disappear “and a new heaven and a new earth” will come down out
of heaven. (Rev. 21:1) Original creation out of nothing? No biggie. We are
speaking of the sovereign God, after all.
However, if this is God’s
standard of “new,” the standard He applies to His church, then that standard of
newness must be possible—actually mandatory—for its members. Do we believe that
whether we feel it or not? Do we believe that whether we want to or not?
I hope this picture will
help: Imagine a snake shedding its skin. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort,
but a snake will take as long as necessary because there is nothing in that
skin that the snake wants or needs, nothing of life or growth. The snake isn’t
looking fondly back over its shoulder at its too-small, cast-off past; its
whole motion, its every instinct, is propelling it forward.
Poof! Old creation gone—new
one in its place. Apparently, God saves the easy ones for the created order.
But the power that can call trees into being is the same power that produces
new creatures in Christ. On the days when we are tempted to crawl back in our
old skins, we need to remember that “newness” isn’t our idea, but His… not on
our timetable, but His. We just need to keep moving forward.
Nancy Shirah
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