The Miracle of the New Creation Life

The miracle of the new birth for every believer is far beyond anything we could imagine or think, not only are we recreated and born again, we also now have a brand-new nature. Our old sinful nature was crucified with Christ and was buried with him, and we were raised into new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. God now relates to us in grace and speaks to our New Man in Christ. We have been given a new spirit and a new heart, and the Holy Spirit has come and taken up residence within us. Within us is the power of God to have our minds and thought patterns transformed and renewed. The faith of Christ is planted within us, and we can now understand and use the word of God in every situation. This means that we now have a new identity in Christ, we have been adopted into the family of God, and we have a new identity as righteous and holy sons of God. The Holy Spirit permanent home inside us, means that we have unrestricted access into the presence of God. As New Creation joint-heirs with Christ, we have the authority of heaven in every prayer, we are empowered for worship, and we are eternally secure as true sons of God. God’s overwhelming, all-encompassing, all-embracing love has been deposited in us and nothing can separate from his love to us. We have his authority, his victory, his faith, his favour, and every blessing of God. We are alive in the family of God, and we are part of the Kingdom of God called to rule and reign with Christ in everything we say and do.

Map of my Heart.

As time goes on we start to make an internal map of what is wrong and is right. This map is embedded in our subconscious and forms our belief system. It is often this map that steers us through the hundreds of daily decisions we have to make.

This freedom of thought and choice is an essential component of our design because  it means be can we can change our way of thinking and experiencing instead of just repeating the same things over and over again.

The danger with this internal map is that it can blinker our spiritual eyes to the wonderful majesty of Christ that is alive within us. God is constantly uplifting us to know and experience his delight and love that is alive within us.

God gives us hundreds of opportunities every single day to which he wants to open up our eyes to his work within us.

By saying yes to God's delight in us, we open up ourselves to new avenues of the Holy Spirit and therefore we become more conscious of his presence and we awake to his gentle whisper that invites us to engage with him.

It is however always easier to say no than yes. Yes requires courage to engage with God. Yes requires openness and generosity and no keeps things just as they are.

Yes involves risk and no does not. Yes requires trust whereas no requires none.

God's hearts desire is that we enjoy him and delight in him. God has placed his Holy Spirit into us and invites us into the adventure of writing a new map in our hearts. He wants to take us on an adventure to discover the depths of his work in our lives.

Christ says Yes, for the declaration of God  to us all God's promises are YES and AMEN in Christ Jesus. 

God wants to write inside our hearts a new map, and map of his grace, a map of his unconditional love, a map of his delight,  a map of his treasure given to us. It is from this map of God's delight that the Holy Spirit wants to re-configure our subconscious so that all we think and experience is from the majesty, grace and glory of God.

The Ability To Believe

Who we believe we are is who we will become. All of life's rich experiences are moments that have the ability to draw us into a deeper way we believe and frame who we are.

The way we interpret those moments will shape both how we see ourselves and our indentity.  It is so very easy for us get a warped perception of life and who we really are by clinging on to how we live and react when those moments come.

No one's identity is completely fixed. We like to think that that is not the case, but each of us has the ability to alter our perception,  the power to change and more importantly the ability to plant new beliefs and root up old, damaging beliefs. We have the capacity to grow as we live and experience new things within us.

But with this also comes the ability to believe we are something we are not. So on any given day, like a jelly left out in the sunshine, we can alter our belief system and change for the better or worse.

God through the Holy Spirit has given us the opportunity to tap into the resurrection power of Christ within us. Our flexible hearts of who we are can be changed from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. In Christ we are immersed into the river of God's love and delight.

Christ's desire is so abundantly passionate that his heart is that we align our hearts with his finished work at the cross and identify with Him in every experience of life.

This is not impossible because the Holy Spirit is within cascading through us bringing the truth of Christ alive in us. All we have to do is tune into his voice and his gentle nudge.

The world will try to fill our minds with worldly wisdom and a negative perception of life. It will try to diminish your value and promote fear and anxiety. But God has now in Christ NOT given you a spirit of fear, but a new Spirit of power and love and a sound mind .

The loving encouragement of God is that you find your delight in him, you find your purpose in his love for you and you excel in your heart by believing and experiencing his grace alive in you.

Christ in you has the ability and power to change your belief system so that you know and experience the love and power of the Holy Spirit in every golden moment of life.

Christ’s Death is the Key to Contentment

This statement seems almost unbelievable, that the key to true contentment is found in the finished work of the cross. Everything about us tells us that contentment is found when we lack nothing. But the Bible tells us in the letter to the Philippians, that contentment is found in the one who gives us strength - “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4 : 11-13).

Paul here presents himself as an example of a man who has learned to be content in times of plenty and in seasons of lack. What was the secret to Paul’s contentment, that “ He could do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” He found everything he wanted in the person of Christ, for in Christ Paul discovered that he lacked nothing.  In his own words, he had been crucified with Christ and he was now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Through the death of Christ he had been planted into the ocean of God’s grace.

Contentment is an awakening that when Christ died on the cross, we died. The key to Christ-centred contentment is the cross. When you let the finished work of the cross invade and overwhelm your life, the enchantment of the world is broken. You are dead to the world, and the world is dead to you. Or to put it in real terms, you are a New Creation. The old you is dead. A new you is alive – a you filled with Holy Spirit, overflowing with the glory of God and overwhelmed by the majesty of God.

Being dead to the world means that our hearts run and abide in the blessings of the cross and finished work of the cross is the motivation and joy of our lives. For the greatest satisfaction and contentment is found in the death and resurrection of Christ.

Christ’s Death Is Our Guarantee

The death of Christ is a guarantee that every promise God has made is ‘Yes’ and ‘Amen’ in New Creation life. This guarantee is a promise “right up to the end that you would be counted free from all sin and guilt.” (1 Corinthians 1:8). Because of the finished work of Christ on the cross two thousand years ago, we are now counted free and every moment we live until the day He returns we are held in the guarantee of the cross.

The foundation of the New Covenant is sealed with the blood of Jesus. When the bible speaks of the blood of Jesus, it is speaking of his death. Everything that was accomplished at the cross, was made possible by the shedding of his blood.

But more than this, much more, is the revelation that the blood of Jesus accomplished His resurrection.  The resurrection of Jesus was God’s universal endorsement that the obedience of Christ was fully absorbed and completely paid for, all the consequences of Adams sin. The point is that the resurrection proves that the death of Jesus paid everything in full. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then his death was a failure.  His death provided his guarantee that his resurrection would be our resurrection.

This is the absolute promise of today. God wants you and I to live our lives free from the consequences of sin and free from guilt. Guilt free living is God’s best for His people.  By God’s grace we are guaranteed to live a life of communion with his son. A co-partnership of fellowship with the son.  A guarantee that we are now blameless in Christ and much more than this, we are made holy by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

God’s guarantee is that he is forever faithful and He can be trusted to fulfil all his promises in our lives.  His guarantee is that his finished work is complete and therefore we are now complete in Christ Jesus.

Christ’s Death Sets Us Free.

The message of the New Creation planted into us, was declared by Jesus in a synagogue in Nazareth,  when he stood up and read from the book of Isaiah to the religious leaders, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind see, and that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.”

This is the revelation of the New Covenant. Christ has come to declare the healing restoration of God to his creation.  The free gift of the Lord’s favour.  A gift we receive, given by Christ to his great treasure. It was His death that would accept us into his family and would restore us.

Christ died to break every chain of oppression, captivity, and to release us from the prison of despair. Christ did not die to make it merely possible or give us a half-hearted answer. He died to bring freedom and to plant his passion into our hearts. For New Creation life is not a refurbishment of our old life but a complete transformation from old to new, darkness to light, from death to resurrection.

The New Covenant is an oath of freedom, a promise of eternal redemption purchased by the blood of Christ.  Our sinfulness, our fear, our captivity all died in the death of Jesus Christ.  In the death of Christ, was the death of everything that oppressed us. When we see the cross through the eyes of faith and trust, we simply find that everything is already done and the chains that had bound us are broken and grace overtakes us.

The end of our quest for wholeness is found in Christ, for Christ heals the deepest parts of our hearts, He opens our blind eyes to the magnificence of His finished work and He sets our hearts free to be filled with his majesty.

The death and resurrection of Christ ends our pursuit of freedom, for in our New Creation life we are eternally connected and set free in Christ to enjoy and delight in him forever. In Christ we are raised with him in His resurrection to live in the abundant life he promised and provided.

Keep Your Back straight and Your Arms even

This was the advice my physio gave to me after my year long sessions came to an end.

“Always make sure that when you stand, keep your back straight and your arms even.”

The simple act of keeping your back in correct alignment with your body.

The better that alignment of your body is the better you hold yourself.

Alignment with the correct posture is a physical must.

Alignment with the truth of who we are in Christ is a spiritual must.

For knowing the truth will set us free and alignment to that truth will encourage us to stand.

For knowing the truth is an awakening, coming alive to the work of redemption paid for us in Christ.

For living the truth is liberation.  Freedom is the gift of Christ to us, renewing our mind and thoughts with the truth.

For in our New Creation life we have God’s presence living inside us.

For in our New Creation life we have the power of the resurrection living inside us.

For in our New Creation life we have a river of living Holy Spirit water flowing inside us.

For in our New Creation life Christ now abides in us and we are complete in him.

For in our New Creation life Christ has made us his dwelling place

For in our New Creation life the glory of God lives in us.

For in our New Creation life we are sons and daughters of God.

For in our New Creation life Christ keeps our back straight and lifts us up to be seated with him heavenly places.