The Amish Voice 11
2 Cor. 5:17 Says:
If any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature; old things
are passed away, behold all things have
become new.
When you realized you were a sinner and
had no hope of a relationship with God with-
out accepting the fact that His Son Jesus had
to suffer and die to pay the
price for your sin, you surren-
dered your life to His control,
confessed your sins and
repented—did you have
a hard time believing
you really are a new
creation? Or did you feel
like the same old person, espe-
cially when temptations came
along and you succumbed to
them?
From my own experience and from what I've
heard from others, it is quite common for us
to struggle with this. It is very hard to wrap
our minds around the fact that things truly
have changed and we are a new person with
a new identity.
When a caterpillar goes through its meta-
morphosis and becomes a butterfly, does it
still believe it is a caterpillar and continue to
crawl around? No, it realizes something is
different, and tries out its new wings.
So must we when we have truly seen our sin,
our helplessness before God, received the
gift of His dear Son, and repented, and
turned our lives over to Him.
We must look at ourselves, at our 'new
wings' and realize, "I am not the same per-
son I was!
I am a new creature because
Jesus saved me!
I can now walk in the newness
of life Jesus gave me!
I have a new identity. My old
identity, who I thought I was, is
left back at the cross, and the
new me, the person God created
me to be is what is left.
I found it helpful to actually pray, and tell
God, "I bring myself to Your altar; put to
death the Lynn that I know, and raise to life
only the Lynn that You created me to be."
He knows how to do this, and we are safe in
His hands.
He is our Creator, and since He started a
good work in us, we can know He will be
faithful to complete it.
Philippians 1:6 says:
Being confident of
this very thing, that he which hath be-
gun a good work in you will perform it
until the day of Jesus Christ:
—Continued from back cover (Who is my God?)
He is my Salvation:
Who leads me home to Heaven when my work
on earth is done!
Who breaks the bonds of sin and death so that
I can live forever just the way He intended His
creation to be!
Who heals my body and my mind when I call
to Him in desperate times!
He is the Alpha and the Omega...the Begin-
ning and the End!
Exodus 15:1-2:
Then sang Moses and the
children of Israel this song unto the LORD,
and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD,
for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and
his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
The LORD is my strength and song, and he is
become my salvation: he is my God, and I will
prepare him an habitation; my father's God,
and I will exalt him.
Exodus 15:11-13:
Who is like unto thee, O
LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glo-
rious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing won-
ders?
Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth
swallowed them.
Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people
which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided
them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.
—Dee Yoder
The New Me!
—by Lynn Miller