The New Year The New Me But The Same God.

The New Year, the New Me, But the Same God

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

With the New Year rapidly approaching and people prepare themselves for their New Year resolutions. Some plan on going on losing weight, some plan on helping more in there communities, there are some students striving for better grades in school, some are hoping to stop smoking, and some are just happy to see another day.

But as Christians what is our resolution fore the New Year what are our goals for the next year. And for the people are on the outside looking in where do you plan on being this time next year in Christ. Are you going to be still on the outside again or are you going to be on the inside looking out telling someone to come in and fellowship with us.

The text says therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. And with all this in mind about the New Year and carefully considering the words in this text. If I were to pick a topic it would be “The New Year, the New Me, But the Same God”.

My study text tells me that because believers are united with Jesus both in his death and resurrection; they participate in the new creation. That is we receive the benefits of being restored by Christ to what God had originally created us to be. And Genesis tells us what he originally created us to be He said “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”. God gave us dominion over all things the fish of the sea, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps. But notice God did not give us dominion over ourselves for there is only one power that leads the human race and his name is God. The lord must have seen this day coming when our Godly image would change our missions would cease and we would stop realizing that he’s still the same God.

So going into the New Year we are going to observe three things our New Image, Starting the New Mission and He’s still the same God.

I. A new Image

2 Corinthians 5:16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer.

God is saying our Image has been lost because we examine the flesh to much instead of the spiritual body. So in this metamorphosis we have to get a new image.

With this new image we are not looking at the physical but the spiritual. If you had a mirror that only saw the spirit, what would you see? Would you see beauty boldness and honor, or hatred sadness and disgrace?

2 Corinthians 3:18 says But we all, with unveiled face, beholding a in a mirror the glory of the lord, are being transformed in the same image from glory to glory, just as by the spirit of the lord.

All believers behold the glory of the Lord in the Scripture and are transformed into the image of God. Christ is the image of God (4:4). Glory To Glory: an ever-growing glory. As believers behold the glory of God in the word of God, the spirit of God transforms them into the likeness of Jess Christ. This is a description of the gradual process of sanctification.

And what I got out of this was study your word. Read the word of God, indulge yourself in the word of God, because the more of the word you know the more your going to understand how to be Christ Like. See when you’re in the word you can, fill your spirit up with the word of God and use it to fight off the Devil. Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me under the shadow of thy wings (Psalm 17:8). Like some of us for our physical benefit take self-defense classes……Well God gave us a whole manual on self-defense on moves and techniques we can use to stop the devil. And just as those who are in self-defense classes need to know their technique to survive. We as Christians need to know our technique in order to survive. The bible says our people perish because a lack of knowledge. With this image we must have knowledge of the word to build up our spiritual physique (muscle). So when the devils demons come around you can flex your knowledge.