Friday, October 5, 2007
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Think about you in seventh grade. You say, "I'd rather not." Well, think about you. I mean, what a hunk, right? Miss America! Probably not. Our daughter had a funny experience in her senior French class in high school. There was some down time, and some girls were comparing their wallet pictures, including our daughter. She had out her senior picture and her seventh grade picture, and she put them right next to each other. The teacher asked what everybody was laughing at. Well, our daughter's always had a beautiful smile, but I have to tell you, in seventh grade it was decorated with braces, she had glasses, her hair was kind of kinky and curly and all pulled back, and she looked like a seventh grader. Well, her French teacher looked at that particular picture of our daughter, the seventh grade version that is, and then to the very beautiful senior in her graduation picture: no glasses, long hair, carefully curled hair, big blue eyes unconcealed by glasses. That teacher had a simple two-word reaction, (French teacher, of course) "La Miracle!" Well, "The miracle?" Our daughter could laugh with her friends; she could laugh with her teacher at that old seventh grade picture. Hey, it wasn't her anymore.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "It's Not Me Anymore."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians 6, where we read about people with a past, with a reputation, with a record. Listen to these verses. It starts out with some pretty bad news. "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolater nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor the drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God." Well, that's a lot of guilt there, a lot of shame, a lot of pain, and we're all in there somewhere. But listen to 1 Corinthians 6:11. Here's the good news: "And that is what some of you were, but you were washed, you were sanctified." That means made special again. "You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God." These are people who are cleaned up, made special, made right with God - only one possible way - in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like our daughter and her seventh grade picture. She couldn't laugh at it when she was that person, but she sure could as a senior, because that photo represented who she was then, not now. That's the miracle, the "La Miracle" of being a new creation in Jesus Christ.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "When you are in Christ you are a new creation, the old is gone and new life has begun." He not only changes your eternal future from hell to heaven, and He makes your present meaningful, but He miraculously makes your past sins irrelevant. Maybe you're sometimes pursued by a past you wish you could do over or erase. The Bible says, "Repent and turn to God, and your sins will be wiped away, and times of refreshing will come from the Lord." It's gone! God treats you like a whole new person. Why don't you treat you that way? Maybe you've even held on to some of the old you, because you just didn't believe it could ever be different.
But the Bible says, "He carried our sins in His own body on the tree that we might die to that sin." If you've never been to His cross to get your sins forgiven, why not tell Him right now, "Jesus, I want you as my personal Savior for my personal sin." If you want to be sure you belong to Jesus Christ, and want to know you have this relationship, please go to our website. You'll find a lot more about this there. It's yoursforlife.net. Or call from my booklet Yours For Life at 877-741-1200.
On the other side of going to that cross, you can live beyond the guilt, beyond the shame. All those snapshots of who you were just don't matter anymore. It's not you anymore.