A Totally New Person

Have you ever had something amazing in your life, like it was yours, you were living with it, but didn’t realize at all that you had it? Maybe you bought a FitBit so it would count your steps, and then like a year later you realized that you could receive text messages on it. You had that ability all along you just weren’t living in the reality of it! 

If you’re a follower of Jesus, you have some amazing gifts in your life because of the resurrection! It may be that you don’t realize that you have these things, especially if you’ve just recently started following Jesus. Or maybe you’ve forgotten that you have some of these things, or no one has ever told you. Or, maybe you’ve never given your life to Jesus and you’ve never heard that you could be a totally different person.

YOU HAVE A GLORIOUS FUTURE
2 Corinthians 4:14 says, “For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you.” Did you catch that? We can know, we can be certain, that the one who raised Jesus from the dead will raise us also. If you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, then your future is that you’ll be raised too. Our resurrection is just as sure as Jesus’ resurrection. That means that the end of your story isn’t death, it’s life. God-given life, forever, with God. And look what God tells us about that future in Psalm 16: “You reveal the path of life to me; in your presence is abundant joy; at your right hand are eternal pleasures.” We’ll be resurrected to be with God forever, and in his presence is abundant joy, a fullness of joy, pleasures forever. That’s your future! And your future chances who you are now. The surety of what we’ll have forever gives us the freedom to live for Jesus now.

YOU’RE BEING TRANSFORMED
2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.” You’re being transformed. God’s working in your life. It’s super messy, it may feel like it’s getting worse before it feels like it’s getting better. That’s why in verse 17 Paul calls us a momentary affliction. The affliction of us having our sins exposed, or confessing them to God and each other, or repenting and killing sin in our lives, it’s all hard guys. That’s not easy at all. But notice that Paul says that this is a momentary affliction. It won’t last forever. One day we’ll each be totally transformed to be like Jesus, without sin and failure.

And that’s such great news, that you are being transformed right now, because look what 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.” We look at how glorious, how beautiful Jesus is, and we’re transformed to look more like Jesus. And how does it happen? God does it. It’s from the Lord, who is the Spirit. The good news is that as we follow Jesus, God actually transforms us to look more like Jesus in how we live our lives.

YOU HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT
2 Corinthians 5:5 says, “Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.” Resurrected people have God’s Spirit. It says here that God gave us his Spirit as a down payment. Those words here are like giving someone an engagement ring. It guarantees a marriage day. So we have God’s Spirit living in us, working in our lives, guaranteeing that everything that we’ve already talked about’s gonna happen. So resurrected people are living this life not in our own strength, but in the Spirit’s strength. Not in our own wisdom, but in the Spirit’s wisdom. Not in the identity we create for ourselves but with the identity that the Spirit gives us. Guys, resurrected people live in total dependence on God’s Spirit. We do that because that’s what Jesus did. We have the same Spirit that empowered Jesus, guided Jesus, and brought Jesus joy and comfort. That’s our gift!

YOU CAN PLEASE JESUS WITH YOUR LIFE
2 Corinthians 5:6 says, “So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.  In fact, we are confident, and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him.” We make it our aim to be pleasing to him. That means that our lives can actually please Jesus. Resurrected people live for Jesus. We get to please Jesus with our lives. You can bring God joy, so much joy, by how you represent him in your life. A lot of times people look at the Christian life and feel like it’s a burden. If you’re going to follow Jesus, you have to live by this set of rules or this moral code. You’re restricting yourself! But Jesus disciples didn’t think of it that way. They saw following Jesus as having the amazing opportunity to spend their lives please Jesus. You can please Jesus with your life!

Are you living in the reality of these gifts? If you’ve put your faith in Jesus, these are yours, right now. You’re a totally new person!