That’s why it’s called Good News!

For many Christians, the promise of abundant life in Jesus has felt almost false, or at least…lacking. Yes, heaven is coming, but real life seems more like a short sale on a home loan — it does the job, but it’s less than optimal. How has the mind-blowing reality of God-Inside-You shifted away from daily fellowship with Divine Love? How has it been reduced from power that emancipates us from slavery and death to “grind-it-out behavior management”? Why do so many Christians live like exhausted orphans and slaves rather than bright, hopeful sons and daughters of God?

It’s time for a bold, alternate manifesto: Totally. New. Life.

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“My mind has been thoroughly blown.”

– M. Stewart

Part of the critical shift, the missing link, is how deeply we understand (or rather, misunderstand) the wonder and promise of what it means to be a new creation. For example, most believers have been taught that they need to crucify their old self, so it hits them like a ton of bricks when I teach them what the Apostle Paul taught: You can’t! It’s impossible, since your old man has already died!

Deeply empowered spiritual life will never be a work of the flesh. We cannot and will not mature in Christ through humanistic self-improvement. It has never happened over thousands of years of Christianity, and it never will. So while there is no formula, there is simplicity, and it looks something like this:

     Maturity in Christ
 +  Freedom from Sin
 +  Empowered Destiny
 +  Fruitful Witness

    The Work of the Spirit.

It’s that simple.

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“The New Creation course changed my life.”

– C. Craft

Thus, to be a new creation is to completely surrender your inner life to the Holy Spirit’s transforming power by grace through faith (Gal. 3:3; Rom. 8:5-9). Having died to both sin and Law, you are now alive to God in Christ . . . but here’s the key: do you know it? If you are still mixing Law and Grace in your relationship with God, you are essentially living in a perpetual short sale. It’s time for a generation to arise that is totally dependent on the finished work of grace. No more mixture!