God changed life.

               By Caleb

              Many Christians today think that one prayer uttered to

God and a public confession is all there is to

salvation.  Some may think even less than that is

necessary, but let me share something that recently

jumped out at me during a sermon.  In II Corinthians

5:17 it says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is

a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all

things are become new.”  Now, I’m no authority on

ancient Greek, so I have no way of knowing if this

passage is translated exactly word for word, but I do

believe that God takes an active part in preserving His

Word and so far I have no reason to doubt this

interpretation.  (Anyway, I digress...)  The point that

I would like to show you is in the verse itself, “All

things are become new.”  Isn’t it interesting that it

says “are”; not “have”, or “did”, or some other

past-tense word.  It specifically says “are” as in the

process continues and doesn’t stop.  Some of you may

say this is mere semantics and that’s fine, but I

believe that it was written this way on purpose.  We

are told to continually strive to be like Christ, and

this verse shows us that it is a necessary part of

salvation.  Accepting Jesus in your life changes you at

the point of conversion, yes, but it also continues to

change you throughout your life.  The verse also says

that “if any man be in Christ,” so in order to be

continually renewed, you must dwell in Christ.  Kenneth

Copeland teaches that the word Christ translates into

“the Anointed One and His Anointing.”  So this verse could

also say, “if any man be in [the Anointed One and His

Anointing], he is a new creature...”  That is the

result of a dynamic relationship with the Creator of

the Universe, He changes you constantly.  His desires

become your desires and your habits melt away to make

room for His habits.  The more you spend time in

Christ, the more you change.  You don’t even have to

try!  

    There are so many of us (myself included) that

take it upon themselves to change an area of their life

that they are not happy with.  Take New Year’s

Resolutions for example, what are they?  A bunch of

promises made by mortal, fallible human beings. 

Promises that we know we have no way of keeping.  They

are usually broken after a few days and we feel

horrible afterwards.  But dwelling in the Anointed One

and His Anointing is going to change us for sure!  And

its always available, in Hebrews 13:5 God tells us

that, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”  And

a promise by our sovereign, infallible, loving God is a

promise that you can count on.  He definitely has the

means to keep his promises.  Sometimes, you don’t even

realize that you’ve been changed.  There have been

things in my life that I thought I’d never be able to

give up.  Then one day I realized that I hadn’t done

those things in a few weeks and there was no gaping

hole in my life.  Why?  Because God came into me and

changed my lifestyle.  He altered my being so that I

depended on Him rather than on those earthly things. 

Its wonderful to have a personal relationship with God,

and I know that there is much more that I could be

doing, but my laziness continues to get in the way. 

    I encourage you to put God into your life every second

that you can and don’t just try to squeeze Him in at

the end of the day.  Rearrange your schedule and put

time with God in stone at the very beginning.  Trust

me, you’ll thank yourself and more importantly, you’ll

be living a changed life!