03/07/26 NEW CREATIONS

03/07/26 NEW CREATIONS

People judge a person's parents or church based on the attitude and actions of that person. Once an impression is made, it cannot be completely corrected.

Sadly, God and local churches are misrepresented because people who call themselves "Christian" choose to live in the "natural" rather than the "spiritual," they choose to walk in the flesh rather than in the Spirit, they choose to stumble in the darkness rather than walk in the light, they choose to linger in the lowlands rather than ascend to the heights.

Being Christlike is a choice. It is not simply a choice of human will (you cannot "will yourself" into Christlikeness), but you can choose to surrender to God's will (and God will transform and conform you into the likeness of Christ).

People hold on to habits, desires, culture, beliefs, training, optics, politics, materialism, and relationships that are contrary to growth in grace. This is why it takes "the death" of the Old Man (an instantaneous crisis event), and deliberately following Jesus, through growth in grace and knowledge (a progression in light and life).

We are the only witnesses of Jesus that some people will ever see.
Never give a negative representation of your heavenly Father.
Never be the kind of "Christian" for whom others need to make excuses.

God calls believers "New creations." A Christian is a New Creation who has been reconciled to God, through faith in Christ, and a person who continues in Christ, being renewed as they walk in the light as Christ is in the light.

Don't be the person who was renewed but failed to move forward in newness of life.
Don't be the person who has the label of "New Creation," but wears the old garments of carnality, self-orientation, bitterness, anger, greed, pride.
Don't be the person who professes to be born of the Spirit but refuses complete transformation. You will come across to other people as defective.

It takes no grace for us to judge the sinner.
We are to love the sinner (remember God loved us when we were yet sinners).
We are to forgive others as God forgives us.
We are to be kind, tenderhearted, patient.
We are to do to others what we would have them do to us.

Be a stepping-stone, not a stumbling block.
Be a help, not a hindrance.
Be a blessing, not a burden.
Be a reconciler, not a reviler.
Think more highly of others than you think of yourself.

The hurt we feel because of the sin in someone's life is nothing compared to pain in the heart of a Christian parent for their wayward child.
God's hurt for our sin was manifested on the cross.

When we seek to please God, we will be willing and eager to be conformed to His image. There will be no price that is too high.

Listen closely to teaching, preaching, encouragement, confrontation, correction, instruction in righteousness, admonition, and follow fully, faithfully.