"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" - 11 Corinthians 5:17
Tremendous changes occur when one is born from above and becomes a new creature in Christ. When the great evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, went to be with the Lord, they found, among others things, a seven-point outline upon the flyleaf of his bible enumerating the changes which occur when one steps from the darkness of sin into the sunlight of the grace of God. The outline ran as follows: 1. JUSTIFICATION - a change of standing - before God. 2. REGENERATION - a change of nature - from God. 3. REPENTANCE - a change of mind - about God. 4.CONVERSION - a change of life - for God. 5. ADOPTION - a change of family - in God. 6. SANCTIFICATION - a change of service - unto God. 7. GLORIFICATION - a change of place - with God.
Many years ago in the London Sunday School Times, Doctor Lawes of New Guinea described how he had seen and heard former cannibals praising God at a prayer meeting. "I heard them pray," he said, "men with tattoos on their chests to indicate that they were murderers and that their spears had tasted blood. I have heard them pouring out their hearts in prayer to God, as sweet as children holding converse with their father, and I knew that they had been taught by the Spirit of God." The outward marks of their crimes still remained; but as once these were their pride and glory, now they despised them and did all they could to remove them. Though they could never outwardly take away the scars and the tattoos that stood for their murders, inwardly they had become new creatures, known and understood of God. Therefore, the Lord, who looked upon these savages, saw not their marks of shame but rather the redeemed souls of newborn sons and adopted children.
Have you experienced this great change? - H.C.B.