A Calling To New Life: Are We Embracing It?

For most of us, when we look outside, we see new life all around us. Spring is here. Grass is green and growing, birds are raising their babies, flowers have poked their heads out and are now blooming in full array, the air is light and warm, and the breeze carries that smell of spring. Everything is new. 

All this newness has a way of filling you with desire to join it, to feel light and carefree yet with so much purpose as well. And when we really think about it, that's the way we're supposed to be. Because Christ has given us new life. For those of us who have accepted His gift of salvation, He has called us out of the world. He's called us out of sin, out of darkness, out of our busy schedules, out of our cares and worries. We are, "...a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:9).

Those of us who have personally accepted Christ as our Savior (check out this page if you'd like to know what that means!) are called and are new creatures in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.")

But how often, even though we're still saved, do we revert back to the habits of the former creature that we were? Maybe it doesn't stand out to us as blatant sin, but it's subtly still there. How many times do we fear doing what God has called us to do (whether that be in telling someone about Him or in living the life and taking the simple but often-difficult daily steps that He wants us to take) when "...God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7)? How often do we fear our Father in an unhealthy way, holding back from truly believing the love and forgiveness and compassion that He offers us even after we are saved, when "...ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15)?

How often are we tempted to think of God's work as our own, having this idea that we are the ones that are supposed to do the work of saving the world and that it is all dependent on us, when we are told that it is God's work and we are simply to obey Him in sharing the gospel so that He can bring lost souls to Himself? (1 Corinthians 3:5-7: "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.") 

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Why do we carry around burdens too heavy for us to bear, burdens that drag us down and make us miserable and prevent us from living our lives for God in the way that He wants us to, when we have been told to cast our burdens on Him? (Psalm 55:22: "Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved"). (1 Peter 5:7: "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.") 

Why do we dwell on our past mistakes or sins when we have been given forgiveness and should be "...forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14)?

We could go on and on and on with ways that we often fail to fully live in our Savior, but I think we get the point. Today (and every day!), let's live in our Father, fully embracing the love, peace, rest, purpose, and everything else that He offers us so that we can live for Him and through Him in the way that He desires for us to!

What promises of Christ are you living in today?