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He has put a new song
in my mouth.
Praise to our God!
Many will see and fear,
and will trust in the Lord.
(Psalm 40:3)
Discipleship is not learning to live a better life, but is learning to live a new life...a new life that is not only the best life, but the only true life there is! This new life is learned not by external imitation of the ways of Christ, but by the internal radiation of the very life of Christ. Everything about the Christian is new, except the body.
If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation;
old things have passed away,
behold ALL things have become new.
(2 Corinthians 5:17)
A NEW HEART
Our old sinful hearts are passed away through Christ in His death and burial. God promised each of us a new heart in Christ through His resurrection...a new heart indwelt by the Holy Spirit!
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
I will put My Spirit within you
and cause you to walk in My statutes.
(Isaiah 36:26-27).
A NEW HOME
God not only gives us a new internal living heart, He also gives us a new external dwelling place -- the kingdom of God.
God has delivered us from the power of darkness
and conveyed us into the kingdom of His dear Son.
(Colossians 1:13)
We are now (not later) citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20). We are in the world, but we are no longer of the world (John 17:16).
We are aliens in a foreign land, and pilgrims just passing through (1 Peter 2:11). Boy, can I really relate to this!! :)
A NEW TALK
Imagine for a moment being taken from your home and transported to a foreign (but wonderful) land with absolutely no prospects of returning to your original home. In addition, the language in this new land is not your language. What would you do?
You would not seek to forget your old language. You would seek to learn the new language. And in learning the new language, you would be forgetting (surrendering) the old language.
This is precisely what has happened to you and me! We live in a new spiritual realm although still on earth. God does not call us to do away with our old sinful ways. God calls us to learn our new language from Him, and with this focus on Him, God will indeed lead us to experience the miraculous surrender of our old ways.
This is not "being so heavenly minded that we are no earthy good." This phrase might sound right, but it is old language. Being heavenly minded is not being haughty and aloof. Being heavenly minded is having the mind of Christ which is profoundly humble and willing to get close to anyone who is seeking hope.
A NEW WALK
God calls us to walk out our new talk by faith. Learning this new walk can be awkward, because we walked out the old talk for so long. Again, we are not called to do away with old ways of walking in order to walk the new walk of faith.
Telling a Christian with an addiction to stop the addiction will only lead him to fall. Following is a command followed by a promise:
Walk in the Spirit,
and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
(Galatians 5:16)
The enemy always seeks to distort God and His Word. In this verse, he tempts us to reverse the order and to turn God's beautiful promise into a burdensome command, i.e., "Don't fulfill the lust of the flesh so you can walk in the Spirit." That's old language which will always cause us to fall. Our new language says we have been made completely new in Christ. Christ enpowers us to walk in the Spirit when we hear and heed this new love language.
CLOSING
God nurtures me in our new language through this Rest Stop. I realize this new language can sound really radical. That's because it is radical! It goes against the grain of old language that sounded so right for so many years but brought no real change.
I hope you hear the joy of the Lord through these words, which makes them my personal songs for you. :) However, I no longer want to sing solo as I did with my old language. I want this Rest Stop to be a new symphony with you! Call or write me anytime.
ps, I recently had a sweet fellowship and profound ministry experience for several hours by phone with three new friends who live in Canada. I met them through my Rest Stop and Christmyheart.org. My heart is to develop relationships with individuals, churches, and other ministries.
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