Reading your Bible for Today March 1

March 1: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

KJV Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Devotion:
How do we know the difference that love can make in our lives? How do we know what a difference God can make in our lives? Those are difficult questions to answer for most people, unless you are in the right position to answer them. You cannot say what a difference love will make in your life unless you have experienced real love. You cannot say what a difference God will make in your life until you have experienced Him being in your life!

Surrendering one's life to God will allow us to be forever changed in a way which we will not be able to explain fully unless we have done exactly that, surrender fully to Him. When we give our lives back to Christ, He changes us from the inside (“he is a new creature”), a change that is done, not on a temporary way, but permanently. Once we do this we are God's children once again. It does not mean we are never going to sin again, because we are still living in our bodies with a sin nature. What it means is that we have a new Friend within us who, if we listen to Him, will be able to guide us away from the old life and away from sin.

Because we now have the opportunity to live our lives according to His wishes – is it not prudent to do so? He has given us a new heart through which we can embrace our life with Him eternally. Through that new heart we can change things in our lives. Or in other words, we can change our outward appearance to others through our new heart which Christ has given us. That is how others will be able to see just what a difference He does make in our lives. That example is going to be better than any words we can hope to achieve because we simply cannot explain all He means to us through simple words.

As Christians, our hearts were once filled with enmity towards Christ. In other words, we worked against Him, as an enemy does. We realised our faults, admitted to them and gave our lives back to Christ. Through that we were able to accept Christ's gift He gave by giving His own life on the cross. To those who do not know Christ, this all just seems impossible... But when they can see the change He has made in our lives, they too will start to seek out the truth!

Points to Ponder:
Christ is our living example.

We need to be an example too!