Life in Christ — New and Renewed

 

Several thoughts come to mind with the word RENEW. It means “to reestablish on a new, usually improved, basis or make new or like new” yet for many people that looks like a matter of opinion.

 I’ve been purging the extras and unused from my studio. Seeing only what I need creates a sense of newness. Some think their lives will be made new by a change of employment, a reno on their home, or a new spouse, or even a new politician in power. Samuel thought that when they asked for a king and before his inauguration said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingdom.”

God is in the business of renewal. In the OT, this word is mostly about restoration after seeming deadness or a human failure. For instance, Psalm 104:30 refers to the life cycle of animals and says, “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.”

When God’s people are worn out or discouraged, we often speak to God concerning His ability to restore our energy and hope using these thoughts:

Psalm 103:2–5. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

Isaiah 40:30–31. “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

As for failure, David prayed to God in repentance after his sin with Bathsheba, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” When the entire people of God seemed abandoned, Jeremiah also prayed that God would restore His relationship with them:

Lamentations 5:21–22. “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old— unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.”

In the NT, renewal is about the on-going and lifelong process of becoming more like Jesus. It begins with saving faith and salvation . . .

Titus 3:4–7. “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

We who believe are made new by a ‘second birth’ and then being made new day by day by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even aging does not change the process. 2 Corinthians 4:16 is an encouragement to those who feel ‘old and useless’ at times. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” That inner renewal changes the way I feel about growing older!

The process is simple: I’m to turn away from sin, selfishness, and the rule of my old nature and allow the Spirit of God to keep changing me.

Ephesians 4:20–24. “But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Colossians 3:9–10. “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. We often say that God’s unconditional love accepts us the way we are. Nothing we do affects His love or increases it. However, even though God loves me as I am, He also loves me too much to leave me that way. His goal is to transform me into the image of His Son. He does it by renewal through the power of the Holy Spirit. Making that goal my goal also makes life an incredible adventure. Instead of trying to work things for my benefit, He presents daily opportunities where I can be renewed, reestablished as a new, improved self, given as an amazing gift in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Thank You, Lord!