12-12-07 New identity -- Matthew 1:21
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.
-- Matthew 1:21
Years ago, a dear friend was battling cancer. It was so distressing because how do you fight something that's inside you? Many of our readers have faced cancer and you may be one of them. If that is your struggle now, please know that my prayers are with you.
Anyway, I didn't know what to do, so I photocopied every passage in the Bible where Jesus healed someone, and pasted them into a scrapbook along with pictures that I had cut out of catalogs and brochures. I called it a healing book, and I gave it to our friend.
Although she eventually died, her cancer did go into remission and she was given another year and a half of life.
Cancer can destroy your body, but sin can destroy your soul and rob your spirit of life. Until the birth and death of Jesus, there was no lasting defense against sin. It was enmeshed in our hearts, intertwined with who we were. To remove sin was to remove us. But Jesus came to do the impossible, to save us from our sins.
To do that, Jesus had to create a new identity for us. We had to be born again. Keep in mind that the work of God is far greater than just convincing us to reform and become a follower of Christ. The work of God transforms us from within so that the cancer of sin loses its grip on us. We become the incorruptible, indestructible children of God.
Be encouraged!
Dwight
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