Series on Tim Chester’s You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions

I remember the fear and confusion of becoming a believer in Christ.  Does this mean I have to look and act like the other people I see in church? What does “a new creation” look like? Does this mean I have to throw away all my secular cd’s, unsavory friends, and my not so “Precious Moments” personality? Unfortunately I did a lot of those things in my new found desire to please God, as if my self-righteous acts could somehow justify or repay Him for what He had done for me.  In many ways I became a Christian on the outside in the cultural context that I found myself and spent lots of time suppressing what I thought it was that God didn’t like about me. Looking back twelve years later I see what a fool I was and the many mistakes I made and wish I could Apple+ Z, but then I realize it was all part of what God wanted me to experience so He could bring me to where I am now.  Not that I’ve arrived in any sense of the word,  I am quite sure in 12 more years I will look back to the place I am now and see other such foolishness and hopefully I will be thankful.  But what is it about the Christian call to “new creation”, to a new identity that confuses us?  How does it factor into the change project within us?  Chester provides some answers that perhaps can save us a few years of frustration and self-righteousness. He writes,

Again and again in the New Testament we are called to be what we are. It’s not about achieving something so we can impress. It’s about living out the new identity that God gives us in Jesus (2Peter 1:3-9). We don’t need anything new to be godly because we already have all we need. The great and precious promises that shape our new identity enable us to be like God. Growth in godliness begins with faith in those promises.

Chester continues  by giving the three ways in which the Bible speaks about our new identity, which give the motivation for change.
1. You are a Child of the Father (Galatians 4:4-7; 5:13; Romans 6:15-23)
2. You are the Bride of the Son (Ephesians 5:25-27)
3. You are the Home of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

So often I find that “change” is all about perception.  It has taken on many meanings, the concept of change was even successful in winning a presidential election.  The idea of change can be powerful.  However, unless it’s rooted in becoming a new creation, having a new identity, perhaps it’s just trading one false hope for another.  I recently watched the movie NOTORIOUS, about the the life of rapper Christopher Wallace (Notorious B.I.G.).  It was a fascinating glimpse into the culture and context of rap music.  One of the lines used throughout movie between Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs and Notorious was essentially “in order to change the world, we must first change ourselves.”  Indeed, in order to change the world, we must first be changed. God must change us and give us new identities, identities that find themselves wrapped in Him.  It doesn’t have a standard outward profile, when we are living out our new identity in Christ we are called to be what we are, and that’s enough.