Thoughts for another day

November 8, 2011

Today's verse: 2 Cor. 5:17. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  (KJV)

(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

Jesus said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'  This newness begins the moment He walks into our lives.  There's a dramatic shift in the way we see and perceive things when He is present.  In fact everything, about which Jesus has spoken in His sermon on the mount, seems a possibility when you see it in the light of the Presence of the Lord in you.  He said love and pray for your enemies and truly, it's so much possible to do that, even though you know that your enemy may not have had a change of heart and is still hostile to you.

The newness that Jesus provides is an all pervading newness.  I've had a little experience of this in which I also know that no person is bad: he or she is but a victim of his or her circumstances and experiences and this comes to the fore when he or she is faced with someone of a particular type or some situation.  When Jesus prayed, 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do', the people would have laughed at Him for they of course knew what they were doing!  But did they really? The blindness given by the evil one had engulfed their minds so they couldn't understand what they were doing, but sadly they didn't know it. 

So also when Jesus is with us, we see people the way He does and what do we see?  Miserable creatures with no hope and then forgetting our own situations, we're able to reach out to these people and give them the wonderful news that no matter what others think of them, there is a God who loves them and has given Himself up for them; and thus we're able to win them over.   The newness that comes from Christ makes us a new creation, willing to bend and be humble; and all the old things are wiped away in the flow of the tide of His love in us.