Welcome to Hank’s Place —
Here at Hank’s Place we love 2 Corinthians 5:17 and 21. They read, “Now, if anyone is enfolded into Christ, he has become an entirely new person. All that is related to the old order has vanished. Behold, everything is fresh and new.” And, “For God made the only one who did not know sin to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God through our union with him.”
If you have made Jesus your Savior, life has become an entirely new ball game. As the Passion Translation notes for verse :17: “This would include our old identity, our life of sin, the power of Satan, the religious works of trying to please God, our old relationship with the world, and our old mind-sets. We are not reformed or simply refurbished, we are made completely new by our union with Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.” And for verse :21, “This one verse is perhaps the greatest verse in the New Testament to describe our salvation through the sinless Savior and his substitutionary death on the cross. A wonderful divine exchange took place at the cross. All of our sins were left there, our guilt was removed and forever gone, and we walked away with all of God’s righteousness. …Every believer today possesses the perfect and complete righteousness of Christ. We are seen by the Father as righteous as his Son.” As righteous as His son. Whoa!
The Apostle Paul urges us to GROW in this new reality. To put off our old self, belonging to our old manner of life and put on the new, created in righteousness. Ephesians 4:22-24. Get out of those old duds, old lifestyle, and put on those righteous wedding garments!
Yes, wedding garments! Remember the parable of heaven Jesus told in Matthew 22 of the wedding feast? One person at the feast was not in wedding clothes. It was the custom at the time for the host of the wedding to provide proper garments for all the guests. The guest refusing the garments was tossed into outer darkness.
This is a real issue in churches today where many, for whatever reason, continue in their old identity. Persisting in old lifestyles can be deadly.
Just listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11: “Surely you must know that people who practice evil cannot possess God’s kingdom realm. Stop being deceived! People who continue to engage in sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, sexual perversion, homosexuality, fraud, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse, or extortion—these will not inherit God’s kingdom realm. It’s true that some of you once lived in those lifestyles, but now you have been purified from sin, made holy, and given a perfect standing before God—all because of the power of the name of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and through our union with the Spirit of our God.”
Seriously put off – and put on – my friend; and help other believers do the same. They’ll — COME ALIVE!
NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION
Be notified when a new blog posts