Tag: new life

Categories
Acts Devotionals

New Life

Street Sign the Direction Way to NEW LIFE versus OLD LIFE

[Saul] was unable to see for three days and did not eat or drink. (Acts 9:9)

Maybe it’s because I’m writing this the day after Easter, but those words hit me today. Saul was “dead” for three days.

But on the third day, he rose up a new man.

He saw Jesus differently.

No longer did he see Jesus as a false Messiah. Now he realized that Jesus truly was Lord and Messiah.

And despite the fact that Saul had persecuted Jesus by attacking his people, he came to realize that this Lord, this Messiah, actually loved him and had paid the price for his sin by dying on a cross (Galatians 2:20).

He saw himself differently.

Gone was the pride in his own righteousness. Gone was his pride in his status as both Jew and Pharisee (Philippians 3:4-6).

Now he was humbled by the fact that he was a sinner in need of grace. And to his amazement, God had given it to him.

He saw others differently.

People he had once despised, these “followers of the Way,” these “disciples of Jesus,” were now his brothers and sisters.

And the Gentiles he had despised so long were now people God loved and whom he had called Saul to touch.

As Christians, we too have been given new life.

Do we see Jesus differently? Not as a dead man from history. But a living Lord and Savior who loves us and gave his life for us.

Do we see ourselves differently? All our sense of self-worth, not coming from our status or accomplishments, but from the fact that we are forgiven sinners.

Are we blown away by the fact that God looks at us and says, “You are my beloved child.”

Do we see others differently? As people God values and loves. As people God sends us to so that they might find new life too.

Or do we still live as if we were dead?

May we be able to say with Saul who became Paul,

For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. 

And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:14-17)

Categories
Romans Devotionals

Walking in the newness of life

Romans

Just meditating today on verse 4 where Paul says,

Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)

Prior to the cross, there was a certain heaviness that Jesus carried with him, the knowledge that a day of reckoning was coming. That he would be put on a cross, bearing our sin and shame.

And while he rejoiced in serving his Father, nevertheless, that heaviness remained reaching its peak at Gethsemane (Luke 12:50, John 12:27; Luke 22:42-44).

But when he rose from the dead, all that burden was lifted from him. Our sins that he came to die for were now paid for, and now he was free to live for the glory of his Father with complete joy.

It is the same with us.

Prior to becoming Christians, we carried the weight of our sin with all its shame and the certainty of judgment hanging over us.

But when we were baptized into Jesus, his death became ours. All our punishment was transferred to him. All our shame was transferred to him.

And as with Jesus, we have now been raised to new life. We no longer carry the burden of ours sins, the shame it brings, and the fear of judgment. Our sins have been completely paid for.

Now we are free to live for the glory of our Father with complete joy.

So let us live each day in that joy

Categories
Jeremiah

Sliding back

Jeremiah

For those of you who have been following this blog through Jeremiah, you know that we’ve done quite a bit of jumping around the book just to stay roughly chronological.

That said, it may come as a bit of a surprise (it did to me) that chapters 43–44 are essentially the end of Jeremiah.

The last 8 chapters all happened prior to the events recorded here. The only thing remaining after this passage is a little footnote concerning King Jehoiachin which we’ll get to in a future blog.

What also surprised me was that Jeremiah probably died right there in Egypt.

We see in chapter 43 that he was dragged there against his will by the leaders of the Jewish remnant that was trying to flee from Nebuchadnezzar. And nowhere in scripture do we see that he ever returns to Judah.

Doing a little digging (the internet is such a useful thing), Jewish tradition holds that he did indeed die in Egypt, probably stoned to death by his own people.

Chapter 44 may provide some explanation for this. (Although admittedly, it may have no connection with it at all. There are times we just have to say, “I don’t know.”)

Having been dragged to Egypt, Jeremiah probably was shocked by what he saw when he got there.

Despite all the horrors that had happened to the Israelites in Jerusalem with the siege and its ultimate fall, the Jews living in Egypt, far from repenting from their sin, were continuing in it.

Namely, they continued worshiping their false gods, specifically the “Queen of Heaven.” (This is probably referring to Ashtoreth, a fertility goddess.)

At this, God gave Jeremiah a message to pass on to the people.

Basically he said this:

“You saw all that happened to Jerusalem because the people had turned their backs on me and started worshiping all these false gods. They did all kinds of detestable things and despite my warnings, they continued in their sin. That’s why all my wrath was poured out on them.

“Why then are you continuing in the sins that destroyed your family and friends in Jerusalem? Because of what you are doing, judgment will come upon you right here in Egypt.” (Jeremiah 44:1–14)

How did the Israelites respond?

“What are you talking about? When we made offerings to the Queen of Heaven, everything went well with us. It was when we stopped that this disaster happened. That’s why we’re making these offerings once again.” (Jeremiah 44:15–19)

It seems that the Jews here had some selective memory.

This is just a guess, but it’s possible that their stopping of offerings happened during the revival under Josiah. During that time, God’s blessing fell upon the nation.

But after his death, the last three kings fell back under idol worship, and so did the nation. It was at that point, after years of warning from the prophets, that Jerusalem fell.

Jeremiah also points out here that their prosperity during their time of idol worship was due not to their idol worship, but due to God’s mercy.

God had given them an extended time to repent, but when they refused to, his patience finally ran out and judgment fell. (Jeremiah 44:20–23)

And now, because they were continuing their sin, judgment would follow them there in Egypt as well.

What can we learn from this? Sometimes we look back at our old life before we became Christians and we start to remember “the good times.”

We think of our life of sin, and think, “Those were the good days. My life was so happy then. Maybe I should go back to my old way of life.”

But we forget two things.

Number one, for most of us, those good times were not so good.

We were often hurting our relationships with our family and the people around us by our attitudes and actions. On top of that, we were hurting ourselves by the bad decisions that we made.

But number two, and even more important, we were a people standing under judgment. And if we had continued on that path, we would have been condemned for all eternity.

Even if we were enjoying our lives, the day would have come when we would have paid for all of our sins.

The Israelites forgot this and slid back into their old sins, and it eventually cost them their lives.

If we slide back into our sins, they will destroy us too.

So let us not slide back to our old life and our old ways. Let us embrace the new life God has given us.

Only in doing so will we truly find a life worth living.