Life Change Begins Here and Continues Forever

2 Corinthians 5:17 is the hope and the reality of every believer.  No one comes to Jesus Christ, who is not changed from what he or she was, to begin living in a new reality.  This new reality is based upon what God intends for us in relationship to Himself, each other and the world that He created.  When God inspired John the Gospel writer to include the story of Jesus' dealing with a man named Nicodemus (chapter 3), He intended for us to understand that no matter how good a person is, that person needs to be and could be changed.  When the Holy Spirit inspired Mark (chapter 5) to include in his Gospel the story of a man filled with demons (the ultimate evil), God intended for us to know also that the worst of people need to be and could be changed.

Change through the grace of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ is the hopeful message of the New Testament.  Because of this, the Church is a place of "life-change."  When a person comes to the Christ and to the Church, that person should expect to begin a different way of living, a different set of values, and different motivation.  For people who have been wounded emotionally, devastated in relationships, confused socially, and out-of-focus spiritually, Christ through His Church offers change.  

How pitiful it is when a person has no hope of themselves or their circumstances being changed.  The world creates categories of prisons and in many cases unnecessarily uses behaviors to lock people into them.  But, the Church with its Christ believes that we are not locked into anything that God through Christ cannot deliver us from.  To be "born again" is to be released from the chains and behaviors of our past.  To be "a new creature" is to be empowered each day to change our thoughts and activity to continue moving intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and behaviorally toward different and more positive outcomes that serve as a witness that ones ultimate destination has changed from what it used to be.

Every person who is in Christ today is an X-something.  But in Christ (being born again) dismisses the X and gives to us new activity and new identity.  Thank God that He never leaves the sinner in the place where He found him.  Life change begins here. 

Whoever you are, wherever you are or have been, "life change can begin" for you today, if you will surrender your life and your will to Christ.  This is your "new day."  This is the day you can be free. 

2 Corinthians 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."