Day 11

Day 11:  Old Self vs. New Self

 

       When we commit our lives to Jesus and accept Him as our Savior the power of renewal is promised.  Our old grimy lives are gone and we are a new creation.  I have heard this over and over in sermons but didn’t find it to easy to forget and forgive myself for the past and move on without carrying the shame with me.  I would continually ask God for forgiveness feel a peace about it then have something happen that brought up a memory of my past and fall right back into the shame of the crazy stuff I did.

      

I tried and tried to find ways to overcome my past.  I prayed, I asked for forgiveness, I read books on healing, I listed things from my shameful past and burned them, and still I couldn’t get rid of the shame.  But God…. Some of the most amazing things happen that start with But God.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:8

His love for us is amazing and His power in us is immeasurable. 

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Philippians 4:13

I had to realize that it was not in my power to overcome my past but in His power.  When we accept Christ as our Savior He tells us we have new life, free and clear.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

2Corinthians 5:17-20

 The old self, our spiritual self before we believed, was a slave to sin and death.  Our new self is the spiritual self that is forgiven and free, given the gift of grace!  Our sinful spirits have been destroyed; our slates have been wiped clean.  Sin no longer controls us, His Spirit does.  Even though our past has been wiped clean we have to choose every day to live in the freedom that Christ was sacrificed for us.

We have been cleaned by the Holy Spirit, remember that every day and choose to walk in His Spirit.  He has immeasurably more, than you could ever imagine, at work in and through us. 

       Are you a believing Christian who is still walking around carrying your old self?  Jesus took care of that!  What can you choose to do today to leave the old self behind and move forward in the Immeasurably More that God has for you?