“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature” (Galatians 6:15).
Due to Adam’s transgression in the Garden of Eden, man became estranged from his Creator. Isaiah 64:6 describes the state of the unregenerate man: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
David also understood this deplorable state of man and lamented thus: “Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity” (Psalm 39:5). This lets’ us know that it doesn’t matter who you are, and what you’ve achieved, outside Christ, it’s all vanity. There are folks who pride themselves in their nativity or the religious group to which they belong, but that doesn’t count with God. What counts is that you’re born again and thus have become a new creation in Christ Jesus.
That you’re a Baptist, an Anglican, a Pentecostal or a Catholic doesn’t impress God, for that’s not what He seeks. The European, the American, the Briton, the African or the Australian at his best state is still nothing before God. Such differentiations and categorizations may be relevant in the world but they’re of no heavenly or spiritual significance. The only thing that matters to God is the new creation.
The Lord Jesus came to save us from our religious, cultural and self-righteous mindsets and give us His own kind of life that we may be able to reason with the mind of Christ. He has made us His righteousness, having begotten us through the Spirit by the Word: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13).
Don’t pride yourself in any fleshly or religious affiliation; don’t seek to impress God by your own works of righteousness. The only righteousness that God accepts today is the righteousness of the new creation, and that righteousness isn’t based on our human perfections, but our faith in the Son of God, and the justification He obtained for us when we were raised with Him from the dead. He has given us a life that’s beyond this world, where all our faults, failures and mistakes don’t matter anymore! He has brought us into a newness of life—old things have passed away, and all things have become new.
Confession
Dear Father, I thank you for the new life in Christ; thank you for making me a new creation in Christ Jesus; now I know that everything that’s not consistent with the new creation life has completely passed away from my life, and all things have become new! Thank you for granting me the life and nature of righteousness, and for ushering me into the supernatural life of victory, having begotten me through your Spirit, by the Word; in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Further Study
2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 6:4; Titus 3:4-6
(Taken by permission from Christ Embassy Church , aka Believer’s LoveWorld Ministries , Lagos, Nigeria. www.ChristEmbassy.org )
