Natural (re)born saints

I remember going to first grade and knowing that, every single day, regardless of how hard I tried, I was going to get in trouble. It never failed…

👎 I’d find myself talking to my neighbor at just the wrong time.

👎 I’d make a quick reply to the teacher that came across more as a smart mouth than a respectful student

👎 One time she left the room, only to return and find me standing on my desk, mimicking a little dance another student had done (they had done their dance on the floor, of course). 

(OK, that final one happened MORE than one time.)

It’s like a had a propensity--  a drive-- to do wrong. I couldn’t help it. 

I know. We can look back at shenanigans like this and laugh. Some of the episodes are funny- in hindsight. 

Bigger people = bigger mistakes 

The trouble is… well… we often find ourselves in those same situations when we get older.

Except this: we’re older. The mistakes are bigger, so the stakes are higher. 

Ever felt like you just can’t get it right?

Ever just known that the relationships are always doomed to fail, the silver lining is always destined to fade to grey, that the light at the end of the tunnel IS, in fact, an oncoming  freight train…?

(In the previous post I talked about the reality that you’ve been made completely new. You’re not just a cleaned up version of the old, you’re new.)

Remember, we have exchanged our old life for the life of Christ. We haven’t just traded the current version of ourselves for a clean version. We have the life of Jesus Himself living in us.

We also read that “God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

In other words, we aren’t just a cleaned-up version of ourselves, we have God’s cleanness that is now our own!

A new pull 

Your new nature (full of light, glory, grace, honor…) isn’t static. It doesn’t just “sit there” and do nothing. It actually pulls you forward into your destiny…

And it does so automatically. 

In the same way that trees generate fruit as a natural overflow of simply being alive, so also do you generate holiness simply by being you. You do it naturally, without striving.

Think about it like this… 

Before coming to Christ I had a natural bent to do the wrong things. Sure, I COULD do the right things, but I had to work against who I was in order to do them. That’s why it was hard to maintain “being in the right” consistently over the long haul. It went AGAINST my natural inclinations.

And that was true whether I was in the first grade or whether I was 20 years old. 

After coming to Christ, my nature has changed. I have a natural bent to do the things of the Kingdom. To love. To honor. To empower. To serve. 

Can I do wrong?

Can I still jump up on the table and “act a fool”? 

Of course- but I have to strive AGAINST my new nature in order to do that. Those actions are no longer “who I am.”

See the difference? 

That’s the power of the new nature. 

The chart below will show you the difference between the “old” you and the “new” / kainos you.