Monday, May 4, 2015

An Inside Job

“Why is it,” the girl asked the botanist, “that when I open a marigold it dies, but when God opens it, it’s beautiful?”

“Because,” came the answer, “God works from the inside out, while you work from the outside in.”
What a beautiful description of the new birth. It’s not something we do on the outside, but something God does on the inside.

A Christian becomes a completely new person. Although we cannot see the change on the inside, we know that there is a change when we see it on the outside – the new behaviors that come with the new birth. When Christ fills our heart on the inside, others will see it on the outside: we will no longer be the same.

People often speak of “being rehabilitated.” But that means that one has been restored to good health, a useful life, one’s former condition. But that is not true of those of us who have been born again. We have, in and through Christ, been re-created: “The old life is gone. A new life has begun,” said Paul.

When we are converted to Christ, we do not turn over a new leaf, we begin living a new life under a new Leader that results in a new way of living. This means that we now live by a new set of standards – God’s standards. We must ask, “Do others see Jesus in us?”

Prayer: Help us, Lord, to examine our lives carefully and completely to be sure we are living this “new life.” In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Scripture for Today: 2 Corinthians 5:11-19  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

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