“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17
One of the most damaging beliefs in the human heart is the conviction that we are unchangeable. That who we were yesterday is who we will be tomorrow.
Paul disagrees, and he does so with the most extravagant language available. He does not say we are improved in Christ. He does not say we are renovated. He says we are new — the old has gone, the new is here.
The hardest people to convince of this are sometimes those who have lived with the heaviest pasts. I have watched them flinch when a stranger walks in, expecting to be recognised, expecting judgment. I have also watched, slowly, over months, the moment their shoulders begin to drop. The moment they begin to live as new.
This is not amnesia. The Christian gospel does not pretend our histories are erased. The cross is not a delete key. It is a redirection. Yesterday becomes evidence of mercy. The story changes from what was done to what is being done.
If you carry a chapter you wish was not written into your book, hear this: God is not embarrassed to be the author of your next page. Every shift on our espresso bar is, in its own small way, a sentence in a new chapter.
You are not who you were. You are who Christ is making you.
Soli Deo Gloria — To God alone be the glory.
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