A new identity, a new name, a new family through adoption to God’s family, a
new inheritance, a new birth, a new indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit within me,
I am now a new creation with a new belonging in the body of Christ and have a
new citizenship in my new home which resides in eternity.
Becoming a Christian is so much more than just starting over. Yesterday, my daughter Rachel was in church with us along with her boyfriend, Daniel Salters, who is working his way up to major league baseball. Several weeks ago, she posted a news story about him in which he talks about his identity is not in being a baseball player, but who he is in Christ. See this link at http://www.gameonlu.com/video-gallery/?videoID=343
This week we will be studying who our identity is in Christ. In Bible Study Fellowship, we will see that when John the Baptist came on the scene, they asked him, “who are you?” Later in the life of Jesus, Jesus Himself asked “Who do people say that I am?”
In Believe, and in tomorrow’s devotional, we will see at the very end of Jesus' ministry, he encountered a tax collector named Zacchaeus, whose identity changed after encountering Jesus.
It is a good question for us to ask ourselves: “Who am I?” How do you identify yourself? “Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief” the old saying went. Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” But the New Covenant declares that God gives us a new heart. See the following verses on how a new heart equals a new thinking which leads to a new identity.
Ezekiel 18:31 -- Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 36:26 -- I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Jeremiah 31:31-33 – 31 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, ” declares the LORD. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Hebrews 10:16 -- “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”
No longer sinner, but now a saint; no longer lost, but now found; no longer estranged from God, but now a child of God. Jesus indeed is making “all things new” (John 21:5).
Becoming a Christian is so much more than just starting over. Yesterday, my daughter Rachel was in church with us along with her boyfriend, Daniel Salters, who is working his way up to major league baseball. Several weeks ago, she posted a news story about him in which he talks about his identity is not in being a baseball player, but who he is in Christ. See this link at http://www.gameonlu.com/video-gallery/?videoID=343
This week we will be studying who our identity is in Christ. In Bible Study Fellowship, we will see that when John the Baptist came on the scene, they asked him, “who are you?” Later in the life of Jesus, Jesus Himself asked “Who do people say that I am?”
In Believe, and in tomorrow’s devotional, we will see at the very end of Jesus' ministry, he encountered a tax collector named Zacchaeus, whose identity changed after encountering Jesus.
It is a good question for us to ask ourselves: “Who am I?” How do you identify yourself? “Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief” the old saying went. Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” But the New Covenant declares that God gives us a new heart. See the following verses on how a new heart equals a new thinking which leads to a new identity.
Ezekiel 18:31 -- Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 36:26 -- I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Jeremiah 31:31-33 – 31 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, ” declares the LORD. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Hebrews 10:16 -- “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”
No longer sinner, but now a saint; no longer lost, but now found; no longer estranged from God, but now a child of God. Jesus indeed is making “all things new” (John 21:5).
