Part 1 (1/2)
Start Your New Life Today.
Joyce Meyer.
PART ONE.
A Brand-New Start.
INTRODUCTION.
The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make.
Do you sometimes wish you could start over? Or do you lead a successful life from all outward appearances but often wonder, Surely there must be more to life than this? In either case, there is good news for you. G.o.d wants to make your life new. He wants to give you a brand-new start if you need one.
Some people have tried religion hoping to find a solution to their frustrating existence. The people who find ”religion” to be a burden of lifeless and unreasonable rules they are unable to keep have not found G.o.d. If you are one of those people, G.o.d has a new life to give you through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus did not die to offer us religion, rather he died to give us an opportunity to have an intimate relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d through faith in Him.
If you need to feel loved, if you need your sins forgiven, if you need a friend who will help you with everything you do, if you need a great future, Jesus Christ is your answer. He is waiting to make you into a brand-new creation and give you a new life beyond the best you could possibly imagine.
If you are not satisfied with your life, then you must change something. Like anyone else, if you keep doing the same things you have always done, you will have the life you have always had. You need to make a decision, the most important decision you will ever make.
This decision is more important than your career choice, where you will attend college, whom you will marry, how you will invest your money, or where you will live. This decision concerns eternity. Eternity is time without end, and there is life after death. When we die, we don't cease to exist; we just begin to exist in another place. It has been said that dying is like going through a revolving door. We simply leave one place and go to another. We-every one of us-need to know where we will spend eternity.
The decision to receive Jesus is a new birth into a relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d for eternity beginning here on earth. When you receive Jesus as your Savior, your spirit is made alive to G.o.d. The Bible tells us if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature-re-created, born anew. Old things have pa.s.sed away and all things are brand-new (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus takes our sin, and we are made right with G.o.d (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). G.o.d imputes righteousness to us or credits it to our account (see Romans 4:11).
The new birth happens in an instant. The burden of sin is lifted and we have a brand-new opportunity in our lives. Learning to live the new life is a process, but not one of trying to conform our behavior to a set of rules of what we think a Christian should be. Many Christians without an understanding of the new life G.o.d makes available to them through Jesus spend their lives trying to earn their own righteousness through doing good works. This doesn't work because G.o.d has already made them acceptable to Him at new birth through Jesus. Righteousness is a free gift from G.o.d to be received through faith. Trying to earn a free gift is like trying to get into a chair in which you are already sitting. It is impossible and very frustrating!
The new life is a process of transformation. G.o.d doesn't work just with our behavior; He also changes our hearts. When we seriously commit ourselves to Jesus as Savior and Lord, G.o.d begins transforming us from the inside out. He makes us like Jesus inside and wants to work what is in us out for other people to see and experience Jesus.
This transformation doesn't happen overnight and will seem very slow at times. One of the benefits of living in a relations.h.i.+p with Jesus is the freedom to forget the past and move ahead into what G.o.d has for us. Jeremiah 29:11 describes the type of future He has in store for us: ”For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.”
When you are tempted to condemn yourself over the progress you think you should be making, turn your focus back on Jesus and G.o.d's promises for us recorded in the Bible. Remind yourself, ”I'm okay and I'm on my way!” Remember that through faith you have been made right with G.o.d, and even though you have not arrived at perfection you are making progress.
Is it hard to make daily the right decisions to allow G.o.d to transform you? Yes, like many other things in life, it is hard at times, and we all make mistakes along the way. Is it worth sticking to? Absolutely!
Many people come to Jesus sincerely desiring to start a new life but don't know what to do after they receive Him. Take this opportunity to begin enjoying the journey G.o.d has for you, and start your new life today. You can have a dynamic intimate relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d and an amazing life!
CHAPTER 1.
Start Your New Life Today.
When you receive Jesus as your Savior, a divine exchange takes place. You give Him your sin and guilt, your shame and blame; He gives you right standing with G.o.d. You give Him the impoverished areas of your life; He gives you abundance. Jesus wants to give you beauty for ashes in every area of your life.
Sometimes people ask, ”What would I have to give up if I became a Christian?”
I tell them, ”Well, you would have to give up misery and sin. You would give up depression and discouragement, fear, worry, and anxiety. Do you carry around a burden of guilt and condemnation? You would also give that up.”
Some people seem to think G.o.d wants to steal everything we enjoy. G.o.d isn't mean! He is love, and He is good. The Bible says G.o.d gives us all things ceaselessly to enjoy (see 1 Timothy 6:17). G.o.d loves us so much He sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to take our sins and give us life, life more abundantly (see John 3:16; 10:10). When we receive Jesus, we receive the kingdom of G.o.d within us, and that kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (see Romans 14:17). We can choose to continue living with misery, depression, discouragement, fear, worry, anxiety, guilt, and condemnation, but Jesus wants us to receive freedom from those things. Through Jesus, ”we are more than conquerors and gain a surpa.s.sing victory through Him Who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
A new birth into a new life is not supposed to be a door into a downtrodden, miserable existence of struggling to keep religious rules and regulations and feeling guilty when we fail. G.o.d gives us a new life and new desires to go along with it. We may lose interest in pursuing some things we used to like very much. A new life as a new creation in relations.h.i.+p with Jesus has brought the fulfillment we used to seek elsewhere. As these changes take place in us, we may not fully understand what we are feeling, but as we trust G.o.d He gives us clarity and we begin enjoying our new life in Christ.
The people who wonder what they would have to give up by choosing to receive Jesus are often cycling through repeated behaviors looking for fulfillment they will never find. If you are one of those people, are you tired of living the way you are living? Are you tired of going through life feeling bad about yourself all the time? Are you tired of making decisions you know are wrong and then feeling guilty about those decisions? Do you want to find the fulfillment you are missing? You may be tired of wondering what will happen to you in the future or tired of being afraid of dying. The good news is Jesus has peace for you.
If you haven't done a good job of running your own life, why not turn it over to the One who created you and knows more about you than you will ever know about yourself? If you start having trouble with an automobile, you take it back to the people who manufactured it to fix it. A similar principle is true with G.o.d. He created you and loves you very much. If your life is not satisfying to you, then take it to Him to fix it.