Monday, October 7, 2013
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Think about what you looked like in seventh grade. You say, "Oh, no! Please, I'd rather not." Are you thinking, "Man, what a hunk I was! What a 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 her senior picture and she also had her seventh grade picture. The teacher asked what everybody was laughing at. Now, my daughter has always had a beautiful smile, but I've got to tell you in seventh grade it was decorated with braces. She had glasses. Her hair was kind of kinky and curly, and she looked like a seventh grader.
Well, her French teacher looked at that picture next to the very beautiful senior in her graduation picture; no glasses, long hair, carefully curled hair, big, blue eyes not concealed by glasses. And that teacher had a simple two-word reaction. I think it was the French words, "La Miracle!" Well, my daughter was laughing with her friends and her teacher at that seventh grade picture because, 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 6:9. It starts out with very bad news and ends with some really good news. We read about people with a past here, with a reputation-a record. "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." That's a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of pain there.
But listen to 1 Corinthians 6:11. Stand by for the very 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." People who are cleaned up, made special again, made right with God; only one possible way, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like my daughter with 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 "la miracle" of being a new creation in Jesus Christ.
Here's what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "When you're in Christ you're a new creation. The old is gone; a new life has begun." He not only changes your eternal future from hell to heaven and makes your present meaningful and satisfying, but He miraculously makes your past sins irrelevant. It may be that you're sometimes pursued by a past you wish you could do over or erase, but the question is, "Did you honestly bring it to Jesus' cross and repent of it?"
Well, if that's so, Acts 3:19 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 is treating you as if you're a whole new person. Why don't you treat you that way? Maybe you've even held onto to some of the old you because you just didn't believe it could ever be different.
Listen to this: "He carried our sins in His own body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24). See, there's no reason for the new you in Christ to still be wearing the braces and glasses of the person you don't ever have to be again. He's dealt with your past. It's all paid for on His cross. It's all part of the sorrows He carried and the sin He was crushed for.
This very day you can have every one of those sins erased from God's Book if you would come to Jesus and say, "Jesus, you who died to pay for my sin, I give myself to you to be forgiven and to become new." That miracle could take place for you this very day. I would love to show you how it could happen.
I just invite you to join me at our website ANewStory.com. You can tear up the old photo. That was you. It won't be you any more because of Jesus.