New Creations

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Scripture: 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21 NRSV)

Meditation:
            What wonderful good news Paul has for us in these verses. However, there are days when we feel like anything but a new creation. Often we simply just feel old. We strain to be an ambassador for Christ. What is the remedy for this?
            There may be several causes. The most important thing to keep in mind is that we are new creations and ambassadors for Christ whether we feel like it or not. Jesus finished the work necessary to make us new creations on the cross some 2,000 years ago. And as soon as we by faith lay hold of that salvation we become new creatures in Christ.
            Our ambassadorship in Christ will only be effective if we deal with whatever drags us down. And there are lots of things that can potentially do that. We may just be over tired and need to get some rest. (How our culture fights against that!) We may need to focus our energy on prayer to help us get a handle on ourselves as the world tries to distract us from Christ. Our ancient foe the Devil may even try to draw us away from God, we must learn to resist him.
            Acting as ambassadors of Christ we have been given the task of declaring by our words and actions that we have been made new. We are needed desperately to hold out the hope of Christ to this hurting and dying world. Let us pray for God to help us in this endeavor,

Prayer:

Holy God, we ask you to give us the strength of mind and will to realize that we are new creatures in Christ. Help us to live for you no matter how we feel. Grant us wisdom to overcome by your cross anything that would hinder us from faithfully following you. May it be so in Jesus name. Amen.  

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