When I’m coaching people, I always encourage them in this way, “Be better today than you were yesterday, and be better tomorrow than you are today.” It’s a simple but profound bit of insight. If you want more in your life, you need to learn to be more than you were a moment ago.
We need to learn to ask ourselves, “How is it working for us to keep living the way we have always lived?” If you can remember too much of how you were yesterday, you are probably not living enough like the Lord wants you to live today. Jesus doesn’t just change that which is old. He helps us put to death the old to make way for the new.
You will never be the same when He is at work with you. It is impossible to experience His presence and remain the same as you were before. Some of us have some old stuff that needs to be put to death. But we cannot do that just as we are. We need the strength of the new to put to death the old.
It may be confusing to realize that Jesus wants us to die to the old before we can enjoy the new. Well, here is the answer to that. We have to learn to take our old person to the cross and stay there until Jesus does the work of helping us die to what keeps us from being made new. You will never be the same when you stand before the work of His hands.
The problem for many of us is the cross. When we see the cross, we run away rather than run towards. If we never go to the cross, we can never learn to go in the direction the Lord wants us to go. We think bad things happen at the cross, but the cross is the place in our lives where the ultimate goodness of God started.
You will never be the same when you learn to live around the cross.
At the cross, you will never walk the same. Abraham went from a settler to a wanderer.
At the cross, you will never talk the same. Jacob went from speaking lies to speaking truths.
At the cross, you will never love the same. Paul went from being a lover of the law to a lover of all people.
You will never be the same when you live at the place where new things are created. If you want your kids to live differently, you go live at the foot of the cross. If you want your marriage to be better, go live at the foot of the cross and you will be birthed into a new and better spouse. If you want your work to be better, go live at the foot of the cross and a better worker will be created in you.
You will never be the same when you decide the person you were yesterday is too old to live another day of your life for you. Jesus wants us to live never desiring to be the same as we were before.
When Moses met God, he went from being a shepherd to being a tool of deliverance. He was never the same. When the woman at the well met the Lord, she went from being scorned to being loved. She was never the same.
How is being the same as you are working out for you? It can never work out for your good. Listen, you ought to want all the new that the Lord offers.
In 2 Corinthians 4:16, scripture tells us, “Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” You will never be the same when Jesus is working to make you something new each day.
Once Jesus has delivered you from a way of life, you stop living like a former sinner. Instead, you live delivered. You don’t have to apologize to the world for who you were. Tell the world who you are now because you are never the same, and you will never be the same with Jesus.
With Jesus at the cross of your life with you, you won’t talk the same tomorrow as you talk today. You won’t work tomorrow the way you work today.
Thank the Lord for being the kind of God who makes the new so amazing for us that we forget how good things were before. You will never be the same when you learn to let Him live in His Name with you.
Live a Delivered Life. Love you.
Live Delivered 