Last Sunday, I began to feel a very uncomfortable pain around a tooth. My dentist started me on antibiotics on Monday morning to tie me over until the dentist office reopened on Thursday after the New Year's holiday.
Because of the nagging pain around my tooth, I was on the verge of cancelling my weekly Monday evening teaching at the Haven of Rest mission. However, when the pain subsided Monday afternoon, I could better concentrate on my heart...and my heart deeply desired to go and be with the 24 men and to share God's Word with them.
I was tempted to stay home, but I was compelled to go by a power that overcame that tempation. I believe that power was the Spirit of Christ in me. Following is a brief description of my special time with the men at the mission.
NEW CREATION EXPLAINED
Because of the New Year's holiday, I taught from 2 Corinthians 5:17 about the miracle of a man becoming a new creation in Christ.
I taught how the word new in this verse is a Greek word that means "brand new," and not the Greek word that means "a new and improved version of an old thing."
I shared how the word creation in this verse is a Greek word that means "created out of nothing," and not the Greek word that means "made with existing materials."
And I shared how the phrase in Christ means "in union with Christ." By His grace, Gold puts a man in union with Christ's death and burial, and then raises a man in union with Christ in His resurrection.
I summarized by sharing that salvation by grace is not God making a man a better man, but is God completely re-creating a man into a brand new man! A man united with the resurrection life of Christ! This is a spiritual, and literal, rebirth.
NEW CREATION EXPERIENCED
I shared how this great good news can only be received and experienced by repentance from sin and faith in Christ's sacrificial death. A man must come to see that his whole life is so sinful before a holy God and that his life must be done away with and a new life given to him. And Christ is the only true life.
After the 45-minute teaching time, and after most of the men had left the chapel and I was gathering my teaching materials, a young man quietly and humbly came up to me and simply said, "I want to receive Christ as my Savior."
I immediately stopped what I was doing and focused on this man. I asked him few questions to understand what he understood about salvation. He was as a little child, humble and sincere, and realizing that Christ died for his sins.
Instead of praying a "salvation prayer" for the man and having him pray after me, the Lord led me to have the man pray from his own heart. And oh how precious his prayer was! I then prayed after him to thank the Lord and to affirm this man as my new brother in Christ. We prayed arm-in-arm, standing together in the presence of God. A host of heavenly angels peered upon this scene.
Discipleship, a Christian growing in his relationship with Christ, starts immediately at salvation. It was such a freedom for me to simply trust the Lord to give this man words for him to begin learning how to articulate the new life the Lord had given him.
This was such a key moment to encourage this man to depend only on Jesus Christ as his new life.
CLOSING
After our prayers, he embraced me with both arms. As he stepped back I saw a sweet tear on one of his cheeks. I believe I was now looking at a new man in Christ. And I believe his tear was rooted in Christ who now indwells him.
A New Man Created! 
