Complete pt. 1- FOR ALL TIME
February 2023
2 Corinthians 5:15, AMPC, “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!” If you have been a Christian for any length of time I feel pretty certain that at one point you probably have heard this verse. And in passing I believe we read this and say to ourselves “hallelujah yes I believe that!” But if we really take a look at our thoughts and habits, is this really true for us in our lives? It is 100% true that the moment we got born again we became a new creation in Christ. ALL of our past was wiped away and we are completely new. That is the truth for us! However, we can often get stuck in our old mindsets and previous habits and continue to allow guilt, shame, and condemnation to rule many parts of our lives. This way of thinking, living, and believing greatly holds us back in reaching our divine destinies. So let’s shed that layer of skin that keeps us bound in old mindsets of who we were and what we could do before!
Whether you are a freshly born again Christian or have been born again for a while now, the truth is you are a new creation in Christ! Something cool about this is that, not only are you changed from the curse bound sinful human you were before you got saved, but even if you have messed up post-salvation you are still that new creature! God’s grace is always readily available to you. Any sin committed after you receive Jesus into your life, does not change the fact that you are a new creation in Christ. Not one sin is stronger than the blood of Jesus that cleansed you and made you new. So don’t fret over that. Sin no longer holds that kind of power over you! If you have made some mistakes post-salvation and you are feeling ashamed or guilty, you don’t have to! Jesus is not condemning you! That heavy feeling of shame is straight from the devil. Simply, go before your sweet Savior repent for the behavior and receive His mercy and grace. Ask Him to cleanse you now with His blood and help you as you move forward in the new direction toward Him. It’s as simple as that! Still a new creature but starting afresh with a new slate.
My purpose in this message this week is to help you see the new you that was created the moment you were born again. That new you has been right there, unscathed and undefiled this whole time. Regardless of anything you did, the blood of Jesus cleansed you and made you new. But sometimes even Christians fall into old sinful habits that bring some slime and dirt onto us. And in those times we need the blood of Jesus to wipe off that layer of stuff that we allowed to muddy up our new creation-self. Underneath, still new and righteous, but sinful behaviors dirtied it up. But praise God for the riches of His grace.
Hebrews 10:10,14, 19-23, TPT, “By God’s will we have been purified and made holy once and for all through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah!; And by his one perfect sacrifice he made us perfectly holy and complete for all time!; And now we are brothers and sisters in God’s family because of the blood of Jesus, and he welcomes us to come into the most holy sanctuary in the heavenly realm—boldly and without hesitation. For he has dedicated a new, life-giving way for us to approach God. For just as the veil was torn in two, Jesus’ body was torn open to give us free and fresh access to him! And since we now have a magnificent High Priest to welcome us into God’s house, we come closer to God and approach him with an open heart, fully convinced that nothing will keep us at a distance from him. For our hearts have been sprinkled with blood to remove impurity, and we have been freed from an accusing conscience. Now we are clean, unstained, and presentable to God inside and out! So now wrap your heart tightly around the hope that lives within us, knowing that God always keeps his promises!” What Jesus did for us was definite. It is unchangeable and can never be gone back on. Not one thing you could ever do, will ever be able to nullify this perfect sacrifice that Jesus made. Your sin is not strong enough to change it.The blood of a perfect Savior is the most powerful and binding covenant. We have been made perfectly holy and complete once and for all, for all time! That is THE truth about you as a child of God who received Jesus as their Lord. SO please know, that no sin no matter how awful or unspeakable you may think that it is, can change who you are in the core as a perfectly holy and complete creation through Jesus! **
As we allow the purity of the Word of God to cleanse old mindsets, let's look forward to how we are now free to be. Any condemnation that brings shame or guilt can be shut down immediately with this prior Hebrews portion of scripture. Read it, declare it out loud, and tell the enemy’s lies to go! We need to be like the apostle Paul when it comes to living our lives as new creatures in Christ. If you recall, Paul had a very shady past. Before Paul met Jesus, he was a very legalistic religious leader that very harshly persecuted the church of Jesus. He sentenced many believers to death, imprisoned them, broke apart their families, and punished them greatly. He was a person that had human blood on his hands. Paul had a past that most would deem unforgivable and unforgettable. But we hear him say these words in Acts 23:1, TPT, “Paul fixed his eyes on the members of the council and said, “My brothers, up to this day I have lived my life before God with a perfectly clear conscience.” How can someone who is responsible for taking the lives of many Christians boldly state that his conscience is clear before God? It’s because the revelation that Jesus’ blood made us complete and new, was so real to him that he no longer even counted the sinful things he had done as part of his account. He became so healed, cleansed, and removed from that old self that he no longer even recognized those sins as having been done by him. That is how we are to be with our past sins and past lives. We have to allow the blood of Jesus and the TRUTH of His deeply real sacrifice to heal us so deeply that we don’t even recognize our past sins as our own! Speaking from personal experience, I had gone through a season of sinful living in my own life, but then I turned my heart back to Jesus and received His cleansing flow of blood to clear the slime of sin from the surface of my new self. I leaned into His love and He began to put my life back together piece by piece. Until one day I found myself living in reality, a dream I had in my heart. I realized I had that same experience Paul did! I was away at a church internship living out a dream of my heart. I was talking with other believers about our testimonies and what God had done in our lives. I remember calling my mom later that day and saying, “it’s like I am not even talking about myself when I tell people about the stories of my testimony of what Jesus had done in my life! I am so healed and so removed from that it’s like I cannot even be talking about my own life!” That’s what the blood of Jesus did for us. The Blood heals us so much that when we recount the glory of God about where He has brought us from it’s as though we can’t even be talking about ourselves because He has cleansed us so completely! That same healing and freedom from the weightiness of sin that I experienced is available for you too!
If you need that revelation to truly reset and cleanse your mindset, I encourage you to take a private moment with Jesus. Put some worship music on, get on your knees, and ask Jesus to pour His cleansing flow on you! Commune with Him presently. Ask Him to heal what needs healed and restore and redeem the parts and pieces of your life that sin has taken a toll on. He can heal more in a moment than you could ever fail in 10 life times. You can walk away perfected in Christ after a split second with Jesus! He is just that good! Take time with Him and go forward as a newly cleaned up creation in Christ. Come back next week for part two!
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