A New You

A New You

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

2 Corinthians 5:17

IN 2014, AMERICANS SPENT MORE THAN $12 BILLION on over 10 million cosmetic surgery procedures. Every year more people are having “work done.” In fact, check this out: in 2014, buttock augmentations were up 86 percent over 2013. I didn’t even know I could get my buttocks augmented! I’ve been accepting my buttocks as is for so long, I kind of feel like a fool.

And it’s not just our bodies. In 2012, Americans spent about $284 billion renovating their homes.

Americans also bought 16.5 million new cars in 2014. If you just can’t buy a new car, you can buy a spray bottle of “New Car Scent” fragrance. Personally, I don’t think anyone is going to be fooled when you pull up in your 1977 Malibu Classic with duct tape covering one quarter panel and your 8-track tape player cranking Lynyrd Skynyrd. Your friend is like, “Bob, this car . . . smells so . . . new. Is it new? Did you just buy this?”

I don’t think the reason for cosmetic surgery is that we don’t like our bodies; it’s that we don’t like ourselves. People believe building a new house will satisfy them, but the reality is that only building a new life will give them what they’re truly looking for. A new car might look better than your old one, but only a new life can get you where you want to go.

The reality is I need a new me. And you need a new you.

Remember the glut of “makeover” TV shows? We still have quite a few today, but for a while it seemed like they were on every channel. One of those shows was Extreme Makeover. Here’s what they promised: “a real-life fairy tale in which their wishes come true, not just by changing their looks, but their lives and destinies.” They got one thing right: that is what we need! We need to change our lives and our destinies, but we can’t do that through plastic surgery, remodeling our homes, improving our wardrobes, or pimping our rides, no matter what our culture tells us.

God’s Image

What’s the reason for this longing we have?

I think it’s because we were made in God’s image. We were designed to live our lives reflecting who he is. That’s why we get so frustrated by our bad choices and bad habits, the things that drag us down, make us mistreat people, and stress us out. We know we were intended for better, but somehow we’ve messed things up. And something inside us screams, “I want to be made new!”

And the good news is that we can be. Here’s the promise we have from God: “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”^a

If a person makes the decision to belong to Jesus, that person is made new. The old is gone; the new has come.

That should fill you with hope. You can be made new! You can be transformed! You’re not stuck! You can change! You don’t have to live forever the way you are now!

God wants to make you new. He wants you to be like him.

The good news of the Bible is that God loves you not as you should be, but just the way you are. The great news is that God loves you too much to leave you as you are, because there’s something so much better for you. He wants to help you be who you should be, the new you you’ve longed to be.

Jesus lived a perfect life—a life of joy and happiness, a life beyond fear and worry, a life of love and compassion, a life without sin and selfishness. He was pure, peaceful, and purpose driven. He had an unmatched intimacy with God. While God isn’t asking you to stop being you, he does want you to be a new you, a new you that is just like Jesus. The Bible says that as we live out our new identity, we’ll see character traits like “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”^b growing in our lives.

A Confused Butterfly

Maybe you’ve become a Christian, but you don’t seem to be becoming more like Jesus. The new you seems a lot like the old you. What’s up with that?

I think the problem for some of us is that we don’t understand the promise God has made us. Since we don’t understand that we have a new identity, we’re still living out our old one.

Imagine a caterpillar. This caterpillar is crawling around in the dirt. Why? Because that’s what caterpillars do. But then this caterpillar goes through an incredible transformation in which it becomes something brand new: a butterfly. It’s a new creation. The old life is gone. The new life has begun. Now that it’s a butterfly, it can take flight and soar through the air. But I want you to imagine this butterfly . . . crawling around in the dirt. What kind of butterfly would crawl around in the dirt? Well, I guess only one who didn’t realize it was a butterfly. A butterfly who thought it was still a caterpillar would continue to crawl in the dirt.

And I wonder if the reason you aren’t living up to God’s promise of you being a new person in Christ is because you don’t understand your new identity. You’re a new person, but you still think you’re the old person. So you still find yourself crawling in the dirt, when you are capable of taking flight.

Understand this: if you’ve become a Christian, even if you are still struggling with your old ways, your old habits, your old sins, that is not the real you anymore.

The apostle Paul struggled with living the same old way even after he became a brand-new person. He writes about it in Romans 7. And what he concludes is interesting and important. He writes, “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”^c

Did you notice the distinction Paul makes? He’s saying, “I know I’m struggling. I know that this sin is in me. But it is not me. I am a new person. I may struggle with things from my past, but I am not my past.”

And you are not your past. You are not your sin. Sin is no longer the truest thing about you.

You are a new person.

God has made you a brand-new you.

Now What?

• Read 2 Corinthians 3:18.
• As a Christ follower, you have a new identity. Your new identity is Jesus’ identity, and it should be becoming a reality in your life “more and more.” What could help you to remember and stay focused on your identity so you can live it out?
• We often get stuck thinking of ourselves the way we’ve always thought of ourselves. Ask God to show you the old identity you maybe haven’t let go of yet and to help you believe you really are new in Christ.