Clear Boundary Lines

We were traipsing through the grounds, enjoying the summer sun. The skies were a perfect blue, and the only clouds were rising from the stacks of the tractors we had come to see. Just off to our right was a sign. We had reached the end of the property. Everything before it looked just like everything past it. If not for the sign, we never would have known we'd wandered onto --What? Someone else's property? A mine field? It sort of reminded me of the Here Be Dragons warning of old. But I'm on the downslope of life --too old to be messing with dragons. We turned around.

2 Corinthians 5:17 makes it clear that when we encounter Jesus, when we are in Christ, we are not the same. There is an end to our old nature, and we are a new creature; old things are gone, and all things are made new. That is what I'd call a boundary line! If we are in Christ, united with Him by faith in Him as our Savior, born again, standing on His work at the cross as our means to relationship with God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit --if this is our condition, we are become a new creation. 

A few years ago, I lost twenty-five pounds. I felt like a new woman! Admittedly, the "new" has worn off a bit, but I am still not who I used to be. I keep an eye on my weight and pay more attention to how my body feels when I eat properly, or I don't. I love the way my clothes fit; I like what I see when I look in the mirror. And when the doctor tells me I'm maintaining a healthy weight and my blood pressure is low? WhooHoo! It's great not being who I used to be! Even better to be made new in Christ! Old things are gone! The desire to drink yourself blind? Gone! The desire to shop 'til your credit score drops? Gone! The desire to cheat on your taxes, your spouse, or Uno? Gone! All things are made new. Not like the boundary line at that truck show. Hmmm, it all looks the same. How do we tell whether we're still where we need to be? Life with Christ is clear, definitive: This is how you used to walk, but this is how you walk today. Ephesians 2:1-3 says,

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Colossians 3:5-7 not only tell us the nature of our old lives, but the consequences to which we were entitled:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.

But the Good News is new life, all things made new: 

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:4-7)

Our thoughts, habits, emotions, passions, pursuits are all conformed and being conformed to those of Christ. The line is drawn, the boundary between old and new is clear, and it is all by the grace of God and the work of His Holy Spirit: 

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance. (Psalm 16:6)

He is pruning the dead branches and plucking up the weeds on what is now His property. And it is dragon-free!