ON THE NEWNESS OF LIFE

A. R. Bernard said, If you don’t have a vision for the future, then your future is threatened to be a repeat of the past.

There is a maxim that advises that it is lunacy to expect a different outcome when we continue the same behavior. In Alabama speak that is, “if you keep doin’ what you’re always a doin’, you’ll keep a gettin’ what you always get’.” While this may be amusing, it rings true for many Christians. We live a life that is incongruous with the portrait that is resoundingly clear in Scripture then we fail to understand how we are not appreciating the blessings of God. We cannot understand why we are depressed or unfulfilled. Comparing ourselves to the unsaved around us, our lives are not really contrasted. Something is wrong, and we know it.

Yes, we are sinners for it says so in Romans 3:23. Yes our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked according to Jeremiah 17:9, but if we are saved it is different. How? Because according to God’s Word we are changed: “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things are become new.” II Corinthians 5:17. Why does God provide us with normative truth in the Bible? Why does He provide us a path for righteous living? Why does He provide us the Holy Spirit? Why, because He expects us to live a victorious life. He expects us to move towards progressive sanctification to maturity.

Let me unpack this. In Romans 6:4 it says: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life”. You see this? At salvation we are freed from death and sin and its power, and by so are enabled to walk in righteousness. Paul goes on to say in 6:18, “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness”. Are you saved? Yes, then live righteously by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Humbly, Sherrell