Topic: Change Within [Thursday June 2, 2016]
Text: 2 Corinthians 5:10-21
Key Verse: “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
In the words of Helen Keller (1880-1968), American renowned deaf-blind lecturer and author: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart”.
Conversion, in the same vein, is the greatest and most exciting experience a person may know, but it is a change that takes place within, in your heart, when you ask Jesus in earnest prayer of repentance to come into your heart. When He comes in, He cleanses your heart of sin and guilt and condemnation. He then dwells within you. Christ living on the inside of you is the reason and power for a really new life which others can see. Some folks are deluded, thinking that religious observances and self inflicted punishments would do.
The hardest thing for a sinner to do is change the attitudes that originally produced sinful behaviour in them. He must be born again to really become a new creature. Being born again is more than being religious. It is more than making personal resolutions. It is a change of life to a completely new and godly behaviour made possible by the Spirit of Christ within. There are things that testify in the believer’s life that he is truly of God, namely, the absence of the old sinful lifestyle, self centeredness, unholy affairs or pursuits and such other things. Jesus becomes the very centre of his life.
The change within is reflected in the corresponding good works produced without. The way we are on the inside matters so much to God. If you are new inwardly, your attitude without will be right. Are you born again?
Thought for the day: New life, evidence of Christ within.
Bible Reading in one Year: 1 Samuel 27-29
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
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