Thursday, July 25, 2024

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 5: 14-21

Questions to Consider:

How does God’s act of renaming Jacob to Israel signify a transformation in Jacob’s life?
What does it mean for us to receive a new identity in Christ?

Reflection:

I want to spend this morning connecting the humility from yesterday to the new identity of today. The renaming of Jacob marked an identity transformation in his life from “Heel Grabber” to “One who Strives with God”. This is not an insignificant change in identity, this is an extreme makeover.

This is, of course, a foreshadowing of the transformation that is offered through the work of Jesus Christ. In our text today Paul says that “if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.” Have you spent time meditating on what it means to be a new creation? Stop and do that now. What does it mean that Christ has remade you? Do you realize that the old has passed away and the new has come?

Stephen mentioned John 3 this past Sunday in Bible Study and there we see Jesus talk about this transformation in terms of being born again. We were born the first time of the flesh but no one born of the flesh will ever see the kingdom God. The person we are (or were) needs to be remade, transformed, born again, given a new identity. The flesh cannot see the kingdom of God but the one who has been born from above can.

This transformation is a total identity transformation. It is not just a change of heart or mind but a complete change in nature and identity. A sinner becomes a saint and this is all the work of Christ through the spirit. This transformation is so complete that Paul can say this:

17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Romans 7; 17-20

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2016. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

If you are in Christ then the sin you do is not who you are anymore because you have already been reborn in Christ. That is the old you, not the new you. So what are we to do? We should live according to our new nature, the nature that has been graciously given to us. Live today as a transformed saint, a new creation, reborn from above.

Prayer:

Thank you God for the transformation you have given me from above. By your spirit, help me to live according to the new nature you have given me. May I look more and more like who I really am. In Jesus name, Amen.