Good Morning Gorgeous,

It’s a brand new day. A fresh start a new day to rise and move in the direction that God is calling you.

The first memory verse this week is

2 Corinthians 5:17

He is calling each of us to live a new life in Him. We are called to live in a new way that looks completely different than our old lives.

This life in Christ is a radical life marked by the way we love others. We are called to radically love people, and not just our loved ones and the people who treat us well, but also people who have been unkind, hurtful, or mean.

Jesus taught alot about loving people, and then He demonstrated the greatest love of all. He willingly gave His life for all so that we could be reconciled back to Him through His righteousness, not our own! He doesn’t count our sins against us, but instead views us through the righteousness given to us by Jesus!

That makes us a brand new creation!

I looked up 2 Corinthians 5:17, and read it in context. In my bible, it is under the title “Ministry of Reconciliation”

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:14‭-‬21

Paul writing to the early Christians tells them that since Christ does for them so that they can live, they are now to live for Christ. And as they move from their old life, Paul instructs them to no longer regard people from a worldly view, but now as Christ sees them.

We have been made new! And with that brand new creation comes the grace and power to live for God.

We now have the righteousness of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit and Paul calls us am ambassadors! An ambassador is someone who speaks on behalf of their own country to a foreign country!

We are ambassadors for Christ speaking as representatives of heaven to the world. We are the official representatives of Christ called to be reconciled to Him first, and then to love in such a way that others are drawn to Him as well.

And we cannot do this by our own power, but because we are NEW creations in Christ Jesus, He enables us to live in a new way.

Our old ways of pride, selfishness, resentment, envy, malicious thoughts, and sins are all gone and we now live from our new spirits that are alive in Christ.

Each day as you read the memory verse, imagine God just continually and lovingly working those old tendencies out and brand new fruits of the spirit in: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self control.

And God is merciful, so if you fall short or mess up and slip back into an old way, repent, and turn back to Jesus. He is faithful even when we are not!

Ask for forgiveness and then speak the truth over yourself.

“I am a new creation in Chrst Jesus! The old life has gone. I am made new!”

From that perspective of newness, you can be empowered to try again. When things are new, we take care of them and protect their newness. You are the same! You are new! Protect your new spirit by not going back to old ways and old patterns. Stay close to Jesus, asking for help as often as needed. Maybe even minute by minute.

You are brand new! Equipped by grace to move in the earth as an ambassador for the living God! Let that sink into your being today! You speak for Jesus!

Dear Heavenly Father,

You are so merciful! Thank You for making us new and seeing us through the righteousness of Jesus. Help us to live like the new creations we are and to love others in radical ways that draw them to You. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Blessings as you walk in newness of Christ,

Vanessa Lynn