Questions and [Answers]: New Creation

Posted by: Tsholo on: October 6, 2009

In: being Christ-like | my life | thoughts
2 Comments

2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.

when does the new creation bit kick in?

i’ve been a Christian for 13 years…already a teenager in my Christianity…and I’m still waiting to be a new creation…

i’m still me…i still mess up…in fact i think if i’m honest enough, the closer i get to where i want to be, the more i seem to mess up. before i was a christian i was a good little girl. now most of the time i feel like i’m a mess *acting* like a good little girl…i give this persona of a good little girl when i’m really a screw up. [“Let no one caught in sin remain inside the lie of inward shame…” - Christ is risen, Matt Maher]

ha ha…my one friend once said “i used to think you were a good girl…well, at least the friend of the good girl…but now…” so i guess people who know me know ME…but it seems like everyone else sees someone i’m not, and i’m wondering how i’m giving people this picture…what am i doing that’s causing this two-faced-ness…and how do i stop it without losing it?

what i mean is, i don’t want to not be a good girl…i just don’t want the good girl to be one side of a coin, i want it to be the whole coin…i want to be real…i want what people see to be who i really am. i tend to feel like a hypocrate a lot…i know the good i should do (and as a youth leader, i tell people the right thing to do) but i don’t do it. i’m such a pharisee.

i used to think that when you become a christian, all the mess disappears…it doesn’t. if anything it seems like it builds up, but i think it’s only cos you are now realising the mess for what it is. there is no sugar-coating it anymore…God’s bringing it into the light so that he can clean it up. and the more you see, the more the devil wants you to think you’re getting deeper in it…you don’t see the cleaning process, you concentrate on the mess

["[I] find that the closer I get to really embracing that truth with my life, the more I feel under attack from my enemy. It’s almost a voice in my head saying I’m unworthy, I can never really be different, my past is too unforgivable and I’ll just make the same mistakes over again. I’m praying that I can live in the realization that I am redeemed, that God says “as far as the east is from the west, so far I have removed your transgressions from you.” – Sarah Shackleford]

Anyway i’m starting to believe there is no end to the mess ["Lord Jesus, I am a sinner in constant need of a Savior -- not just once but every single day. Wretched woman that I am, who will deliver this body from death? The answer, thank God, is You. Thank you for your amazing grace, that saved a wretch like me. Amen." - Jennifer Lee ] That the new creation is not about not having the mess, but it is about willing to let God deal with the mess…about recognising the mess…realising that it is a mess and it has no part in me. The new creation is about me not wanting to live in the mess anymore…about wanting Christ, more than the things that lead me to the mess…

And if I look at it like that, the new creation is already here.