Made New

The Christian school I attended was faithful in offering opportunities for its students to know Jesus. Classes that always began with prayer, lessons presented from a biblical worldview, retreats and chapel services. At times, some of the "worst human beings" walked the halls of our school, waiting to appear before us and tell the story of how God changed their lives. Drug addicts and gang members, rock band singers, ex-cons and Satanists -- God had changed them all -- many instantaneously. The entire auditorium would remain silent as they spoke of a night when they had come to realize their life was on the fast track to ruination and they could no longer hold it together on their own. As they fell down in tears and begged forgiveness, their whole life changed. They felt new and clean, and immediately turned from their immoral lifestyle; they searched for new opportunities to serve the Lord. A microwave regeneration. Newness now.

Please do not misunderstand; I do not mock or discredit anyone's testimony. It happens. But as a teen, listening to testimony after testimony of amazing transformation, I thought that was the way God worked. Monday, you're in the gutter with a fifth of Boones Farm, and by lunch Tuesday you're smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. Every time -- and I was an altar call junkie -- I woke up the following day feeling just as hopeless or hateful or ugly as I did the day before, I figured "it didn't take." Or maybe God just didn't love me enough to want to fix me. He certainly didn't seem to have a use for me. When was He going to make me new?

I have come to find that newness doesn't always feel new or even look new the moment it happens. Jesus was making things new long before any of us came on the scene, and yet, look around. We don't always feel new, and we don't always act new. It might be nice if the work was finished and visible inside and out. We could serve with joy and give cheerfully; we could forgive easily and love abundantly. We could walk around as completed saints; nothing in this life would bother or affect us, the kingdom of God functioning perfectly and fully on earth among His people. But there is the issue of the "now."

The newness of Jesus exists in us right alongside the now. The bills don't stop coming when Jesus makes us new. Coworkers don't stop borrowing the dental floss from our desk (true story). Pets don't stop dying or children don't start obeying unquestioningly. Anger or lust don't immediately quit pestering us. But the newness of Jesus is a fact, and facts don't always match up to what we feel or experience right now. Newness in Christ exists that we might handle the now (as ugly as it may be), and see blessing in the now, and help others through their now, and be a living testimony of the newness of God right now, bringing glory to His name!

I can't tell you the exact date I was born again; I don't recall some split-second change in character or outlook or goals. I surrendered time after time, and time after time went back to doing things my way. And I still don't get it right always; but I have been made new, and I believe it and live accordingly. No matter what I feel, no matter what goes on around me, I believe what has been done for me and within me. I get back on track or stay on track with regular self-evaluation, daily seeking to stay within boundaries that keep me safe, and constantly keeping my eyes on Jesus through prayer and Scriptures. Living in the new; serving Him in the now.