Bible Society of South Africa
Reading plans
How to Live
How to Live – Day 15

How to Live – Day 15

Brand New.

Bible text(s)

17Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. 18All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. 19Our message is that God was making the whole human race his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19GNBOpen in Bible reader

4By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.

Romans 6:4GNBOpen in Bible reader

11In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:11GNBOpen in Bible reader

6Now, however, we are free from the Law, because we died to that which once held us prisoners. No longer do we serve in the old way of a written law, but in the new way of the Spirit.

Romans 7:6GNBOpen in Bible reader

6For when we are in union with Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the lack of it makes any difference at all; what matters is faith that works through love.

Galatians 5:6GNBOpen in Bible reader

So many recorded events in the Bible have as a common theme newness or renewal of circumstances, particularly of people. We read of this for the first time in Genesis when God creates light to dispel the darkness. It created the platform for new life: plants, seeds, animals, birds, marine life and on the sixth day the creature created in God’s image – humankind.

The fall, however, infected the eternal brand-new creation; its completeness and perfection was essentially flawed. The highlight of God’s creation, humankind, was particularly affected – they were banished from God’s presence. Henceforth envy, sin, imperfection, shame, blame-shifting and death, mortality, would be the consequences of their disobedience.

But God was not caught unprepared by these events. He took the initiative to restore his image in humankind and to let them live again in relationship with him. In Christ, he made provision for a new, eternal life with Him. How? “… God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).  What a completely new approach: Someone – the sovereign God – chose to restore a relationship with people who exchanged a relationship with their Maker for a relationship with their dubious selfish ego!

With this reconciliation two new things occur: you now belong to Christ, and you are a new person, a new creature. Romans 6:4,11 describes the rebirth as a death knell to sin and rising to live a new life for God in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul sums up these events: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”

How people in Christ live their lives now or how dedicated they are in serving the Lord is no longer judged by the rules and laws they obey, but how they let themselves be led by Christ through the new way of the Spirit (Romans 7:6) and how obedient people are to the leading of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:6). This is the secret to continuing change and beginning and ending each day as a brand new person.

Bible Society of South Africav.4.18.14
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