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Well, as we are about to enter a new year, I was thinking about the
word "new". As believers, we have received many things that
are new - things that weren't afforded to those who lived before the
coming of our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ. Those people of the Old
Testament were not given the opportunity to come to God as a new
person! We are so blessed!
Some of the "new" things that were given
to us are:
A New Understanding
The New Testament has given us a new way to hear God
when He says, "I have loved you." When we are inclined to
answer back, "How have You loved us?" we have different
information to deal with.
What the Old Testament Jews could not see was how
far God would go to show His love for us. What they could not see is
how emotionally, spiritually, and physically involved God would become
to deal with the heartbreaking problem of our sin.
Today we can read several different New Testament
accounts of the sufferings of One known as the Son of God. We can
reflect on a Messiah who allowed Himself to be misunderstood, shamed,
whipped, and scorned in a public execution outside the walls of
Jerusalem. Today we can read about the anger of His Jewish countrymen,
the flight of His friends, and the inhumanity of His Roman
executioners.
The cross helps us realize that our most serious
problems are not disease or bad environment. According to the New
Testament, Christ died for our sins. It was on the cross that God
showed He loved us enough to pay the price for the worst of our
problems. It was there that He willingly suffered for our pride, our
greed, our impulsiveness, our hatred, our sexual immorality, and our
irreverence. On the cross, God offered a payment for our sins. In the
words of the One who cried out, "My God, My God, why have You
forsaken Me?" (Mk. 15:34), we hear the echo of our own eternal
despair, as the eternal God tasted and swallowed death in our place.
How much does God love us? So much that the New
Testament can say, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).
Through His suffering, we see the terribleness of our own rebellion.
Through His pain, we see the extent of God's love for us.
But if we now have a new way to understand how God
has loved us, we are also ready for a new understanding of how to
accept His love.
A New Opportunity
While Old Testament Jews had many reasons to believe
in the love of God, the cross of Christ went far beyond anything they
had ever seen. When interpreted by the New Testament, the
substitutionary death of Christ makes it clear that no one has to earn
God's love. No one has to jump through moral hoops to earn His
acceptance. No one has to solve difficult riddles to win His favor. No
one has to live up to the legal requirements of the law of God. No one
has to crawl on his knees to compensate for past sins. No one has to do
such things, because God already loves us. He has already loved us
enough to sacrifice His own Son on our behalf.
All that remains is for us to trust what He has done
on our behalf. All we must do is believe that He has done for us what
we could not do for ourselves (Rom. 4:5). The answer is found not by
trying harder to please God but by trusting what Christ has done for
us. God's love is offered to us in the form of a gift, not a reward
(Eph. 2:8-10).
This is the salvation which while coming through a
Jewish Messiah, and while being described by the mouths and pens of
Hebrew prophets, is now offered freely to the whole world. It is the
salvation described by a former rabbi who declared to Jew and Gentile
alike, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and
believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be
saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified,
and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the
Scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.'
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is
Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, for, 'Everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord will be saved'" (Rom. 10:9-13 NIV).
This is how much God loves us.
A New Identity
The New Testament tells us that those who accept
God's love in Christ become new people in the eyes of God. All who
admit their sin and believe in Christ as their "sin bearer"
are given a whole new way of thinking about themselves. They become children
of God.
Having met the condition of accepting Christ as
Savior, these people are in a position to enter fully into the love and
acceptance of God. This doesn't mean God will never be displeased,
angry, or unaccepting of self-destructive and disobedient behavior. It
does mean that these behaviors will be handled on the basis of perfect
family love rather than the legal judgment and condemning rejection
that awaits those outside of Christ.
There is much more in this good news that is often
seen or felt by those who have been raised in Christian homes or in
Western culture. Full, undeserved acceptance in the love of Christ is
the most profound and reassuring truth ever written.
A New Example
As Christ surrendered to the pain of His cross in
order to do the will of God, so we now are to surrender to the pain of
whatever it takes to show our appreciation to God for all He has done
for us.
The apostle Peter wrote, "For to this you were
called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example,
that you should follow His steps: 'Who committed no sin, nor was deceit
found in His mouth'; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in
return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to
Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body
on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for
righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like
sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer
of your souls" (1 Pet. 2:21-25).
By being obedient to death, and thereby fulfilling
the love of God for others, Christ showed us how to walk in the love
that is now ours. He gave us His example at Gethsemane, which shows us
that when it comes to living in and expressing the love of God, we need
to be ready to say:
"Not my will but Your will."
"Not my thoughts but Your thoughts."
"Not my ways but Your ways."
"Not my feelings but Your feelings."
"Not my power but Your power."
This doesn't mean that we discount or deny our own
thoughts or emotions in the process of pursuing God. It just means that
we can't trust our own thoughts or emotions to give us an accurate view
of reality. Our own thoughts and emotions only give us a picture of
what is happening in us. They help us to see why we must continually
measure ourselves, not by ourselves but by the Word of God and the
Spirit of His grace. We can trust our own heart only as it helps us to
see our need of Christ, our need of His undeserved help, and our need
of His undeserved love.
A New Enablement
The New Testament tells us that once we have been
accepted into the love of God by putting ourselves totally at the mercy
of Christ, we have a new life and source of strength. God's Spirit now
lives within us to make it possible for us to walk in the love of God.
While we cannot feel the Spirit, we can see the
evidence of His presence in us as we begin to yield to His control. As
we surrender to the teachings of Christ, we begin to discover what the
apostle Paul meant when he wrote, "He who raised Christ from the
dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who
dwells in you" (Rom. 8:11).
When we're controlled by Christ rather than
ourselves, the result is a growing evidence of love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). This Spirit-filled (Spirit-controlled)
life is the alternative to the anger and avoidance that marks those who
have not found their security in the love of God.
A New Sense Of Balance
Those in Christ have a new balance between "who
they are in Christ" and "how they are doing as His
child." On a scale of 1 to 10, every child of God is a perfect 10
when it comes to his legal position in Christ.
Because the Bible says that the believer in Christ
stands accepted by God in Christ, there is nothing that will ever
separate this child from the love of God. The most important eternal
issues are settled once and for all (Rom. 8:28-39).
Practically speaking, the story may be somewhat
different. We may be only a meager "1" or "3" when
it comes to our love, or joy, or peace. Yet we can still please God in
all of our incompleteness and immaturity if we are growing in the
attitudes Jesus described as "blessed" in Matthew 5:1-10.
Having found legal and family acceptance through faith in Christ, we
grow in that family relationship by letting Christ form a heart in us
that is:
poor in spirit, not arrogant
sorry for sin, not proud
meek before God, not stubborn
hungering for righteousness, not for evil merciful,
not critical and demanding pure in heart, not double-minded
peacemakers, not dividers
A New Vision
Once we begin to see how much God has already done
for us in Christ, we can begin to get a sense of what is yet ahead.
Once we begin to see how much God has sacrificed and suffered for us,
we have reason to say with the apostle Paul, "He who did not spare
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him
also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32). If God's Son died
for us, He will also live for us. Even now, Jesus assures us that while
being present with us through His Spirit, He is in heaven preparing a
place for us, interceding for us, and acting as our Advocate.
If God has used time to bring us to the end of
ourselves, to bring us to Himself, to test our faith, and to show that
His ability to forgive is greater than our ability to sin, then He will
use eternity to surprise us continually with the immeasurable and
inexpressible extent of His love for us!
For now, we must conclude that it is His love that
causes Him to tell us to believe in His Son and to prepare expectantly
for His any-moment return. It is because He loves us that He reminds us
to love one another, to encourage one another, and to help one another
walk a path that leaves no regrets.
It is God's love that encourages us to give up
trying to trust Him in our own strength, and instead to believe that
when we consciously surrender our bodies and minds to Him, He can live
His life through us (Gal. 2:20; 3:2-5).
It is God's love that teaches us to believe that He
calls us righteous, not when we successfully learn and obey all of His
laws but rather when we believe in His Son (Rom. 4:5; Eph. 2:8-10; Ti.
3:5). He is our Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5), Advocate (1 Jn. 2:1), and Savior
(1 Jn. 4:14).
It is God's love that teaches us to feel our own
weakness and helplessness. It is God's love that leads us to despair of
helping ourselves. It is God's love that teaches us to have no
confidence in our own flesh before discovering the liberating
difference that Christ can be in us (2 Cor. 3:5; 4:7).
It is God's love that calls us to a higher way of
living while also assuring us that He Himself can provide the spiritual
enablement for us to grow into this new way of life (1 Th. 5:24).
With all of that said, I pray that each one of us
will take the opportunity to thank and praise the One who allows us to
welcome a New Year, a New Day and a New Life. A New Life that is full
and without the burden of the sin that we are born into.
God Bless you all and Happy New Year!
Curtis
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