A New Creature   

In the King James Version of the Bible, Romans 12:1-2 begins, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice…” But consider the way it is rendered in the New Century Version: “Do not be shaped by this world; instead be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect.”
I talk a lot about God having a plan for His people. A few weeks ago I wrote an article about God having a plan for Saul’s life so that he would become the well-known apostle Paul. God also has a plan for your life, and His greatest desire concerning you is to bring about a dramatic change in your life. He wants to transform you into a whole new person. And He’s not just looking to change your outward actions. Scripture tells us that He wants to do a complete renovation on the inside. He wants to fully renew your mind, and to give you a new heart that is completely devoted to doing what is good and pleasing to Him.
In 2 Peter 1:3-4, we’re told that God wants us to be “partakers of the divine nature.” And to do that, He begins with a truly radical event in your life. It’s almost like He looks at us with all our sin and all our worldliness, and then He says, “I can’t do anything with what we have here; I need to just throw it away and start all over with someone brand new!”
Sound familiar? Do you remember the man who came to Jesus at night? He was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, and his name was Nicodemus. Do you remember what Jesus told him? “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again” (John 3:5-7).
It’s true. God doesn’t just take our old sinful self and try to make it better. When we by faith are baptized into Christ (Galatians 3:26-27), God takes the old sinful person that we once were, and He puts it to death and buries it (Romans 6:3-5). We are then truly born again to a brand new life. “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Have you become a child of God by being baptized into Christ. Are you then letting God work in your life? God’s will is to change you from being like everybody else in the world to being like Christ. How blessed we are to experience the work of God in our lives!

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