Being Made NewSample

How New is New?

I grew up with a garden. Some of my earliest memories are of pulling weeds, checking corn for ripeness, feeling prickles on the cucumbers, and eating the pea pods nearly as fast as I was picking them.

We have a garden today. Nothing huge, but we enjoy the cucumbers and potatoes, as well as the carrots and peas that the rabbits don’t eat…which, for a few years, has been zero.

Gardens have taught me a great deal through the avenue of analogy.

Perhaps the most significant lesson is the difference in the garden from one season to the next. The change that happens from the end of harvest through the winter into the planting season is absolutely dramatic.

The lush greenery that catches the eye and nose throughout the summer gradually fades and withers as the plants' lifecycle runs its course. Then, the day comes to remove it all, to return the space to dirt. The life once so vibrant and healthy is now simply a memory.

But then comes spring.

The ground softens, ready for the tiller. And soon, seeds are given new beds to call their own, from which they send down their probing roots to find the nutrients they need to grow.

And then comes my favorite moment: seeing the first tiny specks of green in the dirt. The little fragile plants forcing their way up to spread thirsty leaves to the sun are a picture of newness and life.

The old, desolate garden is gone; the new season of life and growth is here.

Men, do you feel as though you have found newness in Jesus? Have you felt the life-giving power of the Spirit peel you from your old self and give you fresh life?

In wrestling with the believers in Corinth, Paul repeatedly returns to the idea that we are made new in Christ through the power of Jesus and the indwelling of the Spirit.

Today’s verse is one of my favorites. It’s great to be reminded that we are something new, men. Too often, it can feel like we are still stuck in the old ways of things, that no matter how much we want to be different, we are simply the “old us.”

But that’s not the truth.

The truth is that we are new. We are made new in Christ. That is who we are and also what we are becoming.

Prayer: Lord, thank You for making me a new creation. Please help me to be a man who lives as a new creation and does not remain in my old ways. Amen.

Reflection: What is the biggest difference between your old self and your new self?