2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”  NKJV

I’ve heard people say, “I can tell you the time, and take you to the place where I was saved”.  I can for it was so monumental and revolutionary in my life that it is indelibly imprinted on my heart and mind.  I had been running without really knowing I was running from God.  I had developed many erroneous ideas regarding acceptance to God justifying my lifestyle and mentality by comparing myself to others who identified themselves as Christians.  I went to Vietnam with that mentality and thankfully God spared my life allowing me time to hear and heed His call to faith and repentance.

I know some who tell me, “I don’t remember not being a Christian” and while that was not my experience I wish it were.  I had a young man tell me once, “Preacher, I need to sow my wild oats so when I come to Christ I’ll have a testimony.”  I tried in vain to help him see that it would be an even greater testimony, in my view, to have committed to Christ at an early age and remained true and faithful throughout his entire life.  Then there is the additional danger of something happening to end his life on earth before He heeded God’s call and the reality that such presumption might leave him as Esau weeping without acceptance. I shudder to even think of such presumption in predetermining that one would push God away until a time of their choosing and somehow expect Him to respond to their timeline.

Fascination with sin has always been something in the hearts of many and frequently when someone who has lived in wretchedness and been redeemed gives their public testimony I hear people idolizing the sin rather than the salvation and that troubles me.  Glamorizing sin is not a positive thing but a detriment, in my view.

Here the apostle tells us that when we come to Christ we are ‘newly created’.  He is not suggesting as Nicodemus that this would somehow be a new physical birth but an inward and spiritual one.  What we were is no longer and what we are, in Christ is not the testimony we offer.  I was wicked and He transformed me into something completely other than what I was.  I was hell bound and His love changed my course 180 degrees.  I was a citizen of darkness and His shed blood on Calvary made me a citizen of the light.  I am a NEW CREATION in CHRIST JESUS!

The Roy Beaird that was died that night in Palestine, Texas and the newly created Roy Beaird came to life.  I did not instantly find that all the past was forgotten and troubled me no longer but I found that the hold the past had on my heart and mind was broken and now I had a faithful advocate who would empower me to overcome and inspire me to continue moving toward the prize.  Thank God I was saved, am saved, and am being saved! This new creation that I am is a pilgrim on Earth waiting the time of transition to the Eternal.  It is Christ in me the hope of glory!

            May God be with you as you go through your day!