WRITTEN BY TIM LABRECHE
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17, CSB)
Last January, when I kicked off a year of writing about who God says we are, I started with the fact that we are forgiven. I shared a story of an experience at work where I had made a significant mistake and had to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness was given freely.
Fast forward to last month. I again found myself in a situation where I needed to ask for forgiveness. The situation was different, but the root cause was the same. I was embarrassed. I beat myself up a bit. I was upset with myself that I had made another big blunder. I again asked for forgiveness, and it was again freely given.
Didn’t I learn my lesson the first time? Why did I allow the same thing to happen again?!? If Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that we are new creations in Christ, the old is gone, and the new is come, doesn’t that mean we won’t repeat the same mistakes?
Yes.
And No.
Yes, when we accept Christ’s invitation to believe and wholly trust in Him, the Holy Spirit fills us, and we become God’s newly created handiwork, approaching things with a new holy view. The Holy Spirit stirs within us, guiding us when these situations arise. In regards to ‘No,’ I mentioned what Paul wrote about as being new creations; the old is gone, and we’re now covered in ‘new .’Yet, if you read earlier in the same letter, Paul wrote,
“Therefore we do not become discouraged [spiritless, disappointed, or afraid]. Though our outer self is [progressively] wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16, AMP).
As I write this, I’m thinking many might think “old is gone, new has come,” like in Cinderella when her fairy godmother waves her wand and she goes from being in her soot and grime-covered rags to beautifully wearing her glass slippers and elegant princess ballgown, soot and grime-free. When, in fact, it’s a day-by-day, minute-by-minute transformation into the new creation we are becoming. If you caught the end of verse 16, it says we are being renewed day by day. There is no “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo! Brand New, Perfect Believer” experience! It’s a working hard, keep at it, learn from your experiences process. As believers in Christ, our lives are a continual process of renewal through time spent in God’s Word and with the Spirit as we live in continuous community with God and His people.
In the meantime, we can rest knowing that we are indeed a work in progress; that we are not done. His grace, his overflowing and neverending grace falls heavy on us while we grow and mature in HIm. He is not an impatient God demanding we have our act together now at this very instant, or he won’t love us. His patient, unending love for us covers the multitude of our sins.
What about you? Are there difficult experiences/situations that you’ve walked through multiple times? Take some time and ask God for his direction and clarity.
