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                    ||                       How beautiful on the mountains
                    ||                       are the feet of those ... who
                    ||                       proclaim salvation, who say to
                                             Zion, "Your God reigns!"
          Pastor RALPH & GENE ANN WOOD                  --Isaiah 52:7 (NIV)
          E-mail:  randg.wood@encode.com
          FRESH MANNA, 24/02/1998 ...................... 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17
          Therefore, if anyone [is] in Christ-- [a] new creation/creature!
          The old [things] have passed away:  behold, they have become new!
                                                 --2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 (RLW)
             This verse says that when a person becomes a Christian, there
          is a new creation, he or she has become a new creature!  Yet just
          now someone has noted that some Christians don't seem just as new
          as one would expect from this verse.  Their old ways still cling,
          and old habits die hard.  We'll do or we'll say things our Lord
          would not have said or have done.  If -we- are "in Christ", and
          unbelievers are "in the world", would we not expect to see the
          righteousness of Christ manifest in our lives, and the passions
          of the world manifest in their lives?  And yet, many Scriptures
          exist to exhort Christians to be more "new" in their ways; while
          we know unsaved people who are good, generous, honest, and noble.
             When you become a Christian, your whole relationship with God
          becomes new.  He adopts you as His own child [see JOHN 1:12-13].
          You now live in such a close personal relationship with God, that
          Paul calls it being "in Christ".  A fish lives in water; a child
          of God, in Christ!  God forgives your sins, and imputes to you a
          perfect righteousness which only Jesus ever really lived up to.
          You become an heir to eternal life; part of the Church, the body
          of Christ.  This is a great change, in your status!
             But it does take time, for your new standing with God to work
          itself out in the details of your life.  Thus, the apostle Paul,
          after serving God faithfully and fruitfully for many years, still
          considered he had further to go, to get closer to God, to fulfill
          his high Christian calling [PHILIPPIANS 3:12-14].  Indeed, when
          he considered the struggle he continued to have against worldly
          temptation, Paul cried out in anguish [ROMANS 7:7-25].
             One place we see an explanation for this, is 1 CORINTHIANS 13.
          There, we learn that, though our standing with God is quite new,
          we will not see perfection until Jesus returns.  That is, over
          time we grow into the full reality of being "in Christ": our old
          things do pass away, do become new-- or give place to new things
          altogether; and we do grow into the new creation, new creatures
          we have become.  The struggle involved keeps our pride humbled;
          increases our faith, our dependence on God.  And, paradoxically,
          helps us make gains every morning.  Praise God!   --RLW
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