Listen to it here:)
I have had so many regrets. I've made so many mistakes, mistakes that hurt me and ones that hurt people I love. And it is so easy for me to get lost in the memories of them, soaking in the feelings of pain and disappointment and failure. And its easy to begin to think that these events are what define me.
We all can think like this some times. We mull over the thoughts of the disappointment we might feel in ourselves for our pasts or of the disappointment that we imagine others feel about us. We dwell on hurt we have felt or inflicted. And it pushes us into a pit of sadness and shame and hopelessness because there is nothing that we can ever do to change the past. Its dark and bleak and seemingly unredeemable.
But we are no longer defined by what we've done. We are defined by the God who claims us as His own.
I am not weighed down any longer by my past, no matter what it contains. I am changed. I am set free. I am a new creation. We are a new creation! Every day, every moment, we are new. Every time we are convicted about something that we've done, every moment that we take another step with Jesus and recognize that He is greater and has so much more for us than we imagine, we are different from who we once were.
I've noticed that sometimes I can fall into the trap of believing that when I began believing in Jesus I became a new creation but ever since then I've been failing, that He says that I was once a new creation but ever since I became new I've been becoming "old" again, that I'm not very good at living as one who was once made new. What lies! The truth is that, it was not one moment that we were made new. We are made new constantly. Even when I fall or stumble or fail, as soon as I realize it and say "Jesus, forgive me, redeem me." I am a new creation. The person who accepted that sin within that stumble is dead, and a new person is rising in strength. I am not who I once was.
The person who sinned dies when a person repents, they are a new creation!
We are each a new creation every day, the old has gone and the new has come! And every day, we grow in strength and in love. We are different, we are new.
And in that new-ness, we are set free! Set free from that pit of defeat, of regret. Because our God has done what we thought was impossible: He has redeemed us! He has redeemed our mistakes and our past. We are not defined by them.
We are not sinners any longer. You are not a sinner. (Although, unfortunately, you might still sin sometimes:p) You are the child of God, the beloved of Jesus, and the vessel of Holy Spirit.
Sometimes, in church, we can feel like we need to sit in dust and ashes and proclaim our fallen nature and wail out our pathetic state as "sinners!!" out of humility. But honestly, that may be biblical to do sometimes by Old Testament standards, but guess what? By Jesus' standards, that gets us absolutely nowhere.
Because by New Testament standards, we are no longer sinners! And thinking that you are only gets you to sin more (because you think that you are defined by it and enslaved to it, doomed to a life of fighting it and failing often) and it keeps you immobilized in self-loathing and despair, all cloaked in well-meaning religiosity. (Another reason why I don't think Jesus liked religion too much. Truth can get muddled in well-meaning, but confused, tradition and ritual when not guided by the clarity found in intimate relationship.) A sinner is defined as (wait for it, this is mind blowing): someone who sins. A sinner is defined by sin. Makes sense. But a believer is not one that lives in bondage chained to sin. Our chains are broken. We are no longer defined by sin. We are defined by Jesus. Therefore, we're not sinners, we're Christ-like ones.
You know whats empowering? Not sitting in our depressed state of focusing on how bad we have been, thats for sure. What is empowering is resting in the knowledge that Jesus has made us into something different entirely and and acting in the fact that we are now ambassadors of His love.
Our calling is not to sit and reflect on our "natural" state of sin and be ashamed of ourselves. We don't have anything to be ashamed of anymore! Our calling is to claim freedom from those chains and run headlong into the overwhelming and overflowing love of Jesus. You are a child of the King, and that is something is be incredibly proud of.
I wasn't expecting to write that whole ramble, my original purpose was to just share the song:p haha Walk in love and freedom you guys:)
