‘if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!’ (v17)

Reflections based on 2 Corinthians 5:16–21.

Let’s start with the amazing truth that we are new creations in Christ. There may well be things we are ashamed of from our past, but God is saying that it is time to let go. Once we have asked for forgiveness 1 John 1:9 says that ‘he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’. He doesn’t keep remembering our past.

FROM THE INSIDE OUT

He has made us new creations, from the inside out. As we saw in the first of this devotional series, He is most concerned with our hearts. When we accept Jesus as our Lord, He places His light into our hearts, which reorders everything – our beliefs, feelings, actions, wills. This includes a new perspective on others, which is why Paul says to ‘regard no one from a worldly point of view’ (v1). Wow that’s certainly a challenge right there isn’t it? But God has changed us for a reason – to be His ambassadors. We are to be made into the righteousness of Christ in order to reconcile others to Him too. 

AN INCREDIBLE TRADE

Isaiah 61:10 reminds us that being clothed in righteousness is a reason to rejoice in God: ‘I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness’.

Just think about the trade that God did in order for us to be righteous: our worthless, ugly sin for His righteousness, which is of immeasurable worth. In the parable of the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45–46) Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for a great pearl – when he found it he was willing to give up everything else in order to buy it. That is how great a treasure becoming new creations in Christ is for us.

Prayer: Lord may I never lose the wonder of how You transformed me from wretched sinner to beloved child. Today I choose to delight in being a new creation. Amen.