New Beginning part 4
The best part--the very best part--about the New Beginning that came into fulness on the cross... is that what came before doesn't matter. Who you used to be isn't who you have to be. Your actions, especially your "mistakes," don't define you. Let me say it like this: You are not what people call you. But you are what you answer to. Because what you do flows from what you believe. Let me get my memory verse in here. "If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared" (Hebrews 10:2 NLT). This is talking about the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant. Where sin would actually be brought to remembrance. Where we couldn't escape out past. But that was merely a shadow of things to come. Because the perfect sacrifice of Jesus... He didn't just shed His blood FOR us, He gave His blood TO us. His DNA. The Divine Nature of the Almighty. He gave His life FOR us, and He gave His life TO us. Not just a reset button and then we're on our own to try again. No, we became completely new creatures. Not the old man who was of the earth, and earthy. No longer tied to the earth realm, or the senses realm. No longer walking by sight--seeing our mistakes and being doomed to repeat them. No more feelings of guilt. No more feelings of doom and gloom. No more running FROM God because we think He's out to get us. Now we can run TO God because on the cross He GOT us. In a good way. In the best way. He was lifted up from the earth on the cross, and He drew us all into Himself. This New Beginning is all us living in Christ (living in love) because Christ lives in us (because LOVE lives in us)! Its totally new. That's why Romans 6:4 speaks of walking in NEWNESS of life. Its not another chance at life as we knew it. Its a new life. HIS life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. A life full of being loved by God and loving Him back by loving others with the love that we are loved with. That's what's available to us now. And, really, that's what has always been available to us. We just didn't know it. Because in the beginning it was dark. We didn't know who WE were because we didn't know who GOD was. Because we couldn't see clearly. We stumbled around in the dark and we did things that we probably regret. Those things that we felt (and still sometimes feel) guilty about. But we don't have to feel guilty. We have had our consciences purged with that precious blood of Jesus. What came before is gone. The old has passed away. Its all about the new, baby! Dead to sin. Alive to God. Dead to unbelief. Alive to knowing that we are loved, and because we are loved, we can love! We ARE love. That's the best part; we don't have to be held back by anything. Much less our pasts. Everybody has a past. But its IN the past. It doesn't matter anymore. Because Jesus gave everybody a New Beginning. Jesus gave us a NEW life. HIS life. And HE lives that life of love in us, and through us, and as us. He loves us so that we can love each other!