If Anyone is in Christ He is a New Creature

One of the most difficult verses that I’ve studied during my journey with the Lord is 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

As a young man, this would always bother me, especially as I read it in the King James Version, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” I grew up during an era of the “sensational testimony”. By that I mean, that it seemed that the only people that gave their salvation story were those who had been saved from lives of drugs, sex, rock and roll, jail, gangs and the like. I was almost embarrassed to give my testimony. It was not that “sensational” to tell people that I asked Christ to come into my heart by the bath tub at home when I was six years old. I wanted to see that big change that everyone talked about. I lived so long with guilt and misunderstanding and wondering if my “salvation prayer” really took, because in reality, most of my sinning took place after I became a Christian!

It was not until years later that I was encouraged and reminded by someone that it took just as much of the blood of Jesus to save me as it did the person who had the most terrible testimony of all, and that I should not be ashamed that I didn’t have a testimony like that, rather, I should be grateful to God that He, by His grace protected me from going down that road.

But what about the sin issue. Okay, I’m saved, but why did I keep on sinning? Well, here’s where praise can help us to be victorious over sin. As we look at what Christ did for us we see that:Sin is cancelled, but it is not dead! Sin is cancelled, but it is not gone!

Sin is cancelled, but it is very much alive!

Jesus Christ did not die and take our ability to sin away; rather, He died to give us the ability to not sin. As Wesley wrote, “He breaks the power of cancelled sin!” I cannot tell you how many years I lived frustrated asking God to take away the struggles that I had, to free me from all the things that seemed to enslave me. The change came as I began to understand that I was praying the wrong prayer. I was praying for something that had already been accomplished. I needed to ask God to help me to live in the freedom that I already had. Let’s live in that freedom today and Let our worship reflect our thankfulness for that truth.