October 15-Feeling New

It’s Monday and time to start a fresh, new week. I have been sick—as in not out of bed—for the past four days. Last night I started feeling a little better and I think I’m going to make it! I am not feeling like that new creation yet, but I think I’m on my way back to being myself. 


I’m just so glad I don’t have to always “feel” like I’m a new person to be a new person in Christ. It’s comforting to know feelings and emotions (that come and go) don’t determine to whom I belong each day. 


“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5:17-19


I saw a preview for a show about a girl who got into heaven and wasn’t supposed to be there. The premise seems to be your good deeds and your bad ones are on a point system and if you end up with a positive number, you get to go to the “Good Place.” Her numbers were somehow miscalculated (and she should have gone to the bad place) but she was going to try to do enough good things to get to stay. It looked cute but the obvious problem is we can never do enough, in this life or the next, to ensure our place in heaven. The only way is to be in Christ. 


We also have to remember that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” So when we leave this world to enter eternity, we need to remember we will be with God...a holy and righteous God. To enter the presence of that holy God, we must be hidden in the righteousness of Christ because we alone, regardless of how hard we have worked, are not holy. To be "in Christ" means that God no longer sees our imperfections, our unholiness; He sees only the righteousness of His own Son. Only "in Christ" is our sin debt cancelled, our relationship with God restored, and our eternity secured.  


What a gift from the Almighty God of the universe! To care enough about each of us to allow His Son to cover us with His righteousness so that we can enter in to His Holy presence. That’s the reconciliation of us to God.


Thank you Lord for life and for providing the way for us to enter into your presence. You are such a great Father and you love us so much that our hearts can scarcely contain our gratitude and thanksgiving. We love and worship you Jehovah, our God. We praise you and thank you for your great grace and for the reconciliation of us to you through Christ Jesus. We are a new creation in Christ. Amen and amen. 


Love you dear one,

Pam

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