Are You Really You?

Why do the ramifications of being born again startle us?  When a child is born into a family, it is a complete revelation to the home, a revolutionary break with the old structure and forms.  Each child, even when added to large families destroys absolutely the old family and restructures it into a new dynamic that permanently ruptures all of the relationships built before.  Abortion is the ultimate fear of the new beginning.  So to think that when one becomes a Christian we are to be the same old person with a religious overcoat thrown on top of us is ludicrous.  We mustn’t let the stored memories and genetic layering fool us into believing that we are the same when Christ comes to us and makes us new.  We are new and it is not temporary.  We play mental games with ourselves thinking the old behavior patterns that made up our days before will be able to continue into our newness.  The bitterest and saddest and most disappointed people in the world are those Christians who try to keep up the charade of living and doing as they did when there was no Holy Spirit a part of them.  The adultery and corrupt business practices and snobbish indifference to grudges bottled within are not just contemptible within the Christian community, they are a sign that the believer has failed to acknowledge just how new he or she is.  Perfect peace and sustained joy are given over to us when we live freely in Christ and not when we remain bound in the chains of our old way of being.  Dogs return to their vomit but Christians grow increasingly disgusted with the old patterns of sin.  We are born again that we might become perfect and holy…it does not go another way than that.  The sooner we accept our lovely fate, the speedier will come our peaceful happiness.  Dogs gnaw on bones, bears hunt for berries, otters dart about in the water, eagles build nests in the cliffs and each species holds true to itself as the years pass.  A Christian who thinks like a prostitute, dreams like a miser, whines like a selfish prig and is petulant like an unrestrained child is good for nothing.  All the sweetness and courage and steadfastness and contentment put in him by God is wasted by the believer who will not walk in the Spirit and live by the Scriptures.  You are made good by Christ that you might live good; to do otherwise is like dropping diamonds down the drain. 

He put a new song in my mouth…     Psalm 40:3 NIV