On this holy day…a new people is born with whom God has sealed an eternal covenant in the blood of the Word made flesh, crucified and risen. (Pope John Paul II)

Through the cross, we have “newness of life” (Romans 6:4), an awesome fact that I often forget. Consider:

• Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
• Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
• Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. (Galatians 6:15)
• In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3)
• And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)

If you are like me, it’s likely that you read through this list of Scriptures and said, “Yes, but”—

• “Yes, I know it’s true in theory, but…”
• “Yes, but you don’t know my circumstances…”
• “Yes, but I don’t feel like I’m new…”
• “Yes, but I keep trying and I have the same old problems…”

Blah, blah, blah.

Here’s the real problem: I would rather believe my emotions and the lies of the enemy than accept the Word of the Living God. Why? Because believing God requires faith to accept as true what my senses don’t see and my emotions don’t feel.

I said earlier that newness is a fact; it is truth. And as with so many of the truths that God offers us, we experience it only after we have believed it. Our faith makes it real in our lives. So,

• I’m new in theory and in fact.
• My circumstances do not determine God’s ability to make me new.
• My emotions will follow my faith.
• I need to stop trying and simply believe.

I love John 6:28–29; when the disciples ask Jesus how they can try to make God happy, what work they should do, Jesus says simply, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent.” This is the key: faith in Jesus. Note that He is making all things new. Look again at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Paul doesn’t say, “become a new creation” or even “be a new creation.” Rather, Paul says, that if I am in Christ, I am a new creation. Peter tells us that we are new through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words, it has nothing to do with me and my ability or action and everything to do with Jesus.

Though I’ve probably gone on about this long enough, I have to make one more point. If I make the decision to take the Holy Spirit at His word and believe, I need to be sure I really get what “new” means. This is not new as in “new and improved”–which usually means same old stuff in a new package that costs more. And it’s not new as in “new to me”—“yes, it’s a pre-owned car, but it’s new to me.” We sometimes act like and feel like (there’s that emotion thing again) God picked us up at a used car place. I’m not a used car that’s been spiffed up and made to smell better with a few squirts of new car spray.

Let me give you a revelation: when Jesus says He is making all things new and when the Holy Spirit says that you are a “new creation,” they really mean new—N-E-W; or perhaps you would like the Greek: this word is kainos, which means “new, fresh, unused, of a new kind.” I like the way the Amplified phrases it—“a new creature altogether.” Though I may not be able to see it, though I looked the same after I got saved as I did before, in the eyes of God, I became fundamentally different, other, new. The old has gone; all things are new.

In typical fashion, the Holy Spirit pointed me toward another thought on freedom, following right on the heels of what I read yesterday in L’Engle’s Bright Evening Star. The meditation for today in Lent and Easter Wisdom is titled “Freed by the Truth of Christ.” John Paul takes John 8:32 as his starting point: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The Pope says,

These words contain both a fundamental requirement and a warning: the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as a condition for authentic freedom, and the warning to avoid every kind of illusory freedom, every superficial unilateral freedom, every freedom that fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world.

I never heard this verse much as a child, but once I entered into charismatic circles, I heard it all the time—but usually without a reminder that the truth is often challenging. People would raise their hand and declare “I’m free! I’m free!” without giving much thought to what the truth is. I like what Joyce Meyer says about John 8:32: “It’s not the truth about someone else that will set you free; it’s the truth about you.” Our tendency too often is to think, “If only so-and-so had heard this message; this is exactly what they need.”

Both the Pope and Joyce remind us that for the truth to be effective—for Jesus’ beautiful promise of freedom to be manifest in our lives—we have to take a hard look at ourselves. I must consider what I believe and how it lines up with scripture. Not so much in the doctrinal sense but in terms of what the Bible says about me and my situation. Paul tells us that we “have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). This is truth, and in it I will find freedom. But do I believe it? Do I know it as truth in my heart, or is it merely something I know in my head and can recite from memory? If I continually overeat because I tell myself I have no control when I see something sweet, then this truth of self-discipline is theoretical at best.

My experience has been that finding freedom often means giving up excuses: “I know I overate but…” or “I’m sorry I was unkind but you…” Instead, I must say, “I ate too much because I wanted to.” “I was unkind because I chose to be unkind”—or even more to the point, “I was unkind because I wanted to be unkind.” Ouch! Such a statement conflicts with my view of myself as a really nice guy; really nice guys don’t want to be unkind—no, it just happens!

I will know the truth, and the truth will set me free. The question of the moment for me is not “do I know the truth?” but rather, “do I want to know the truth”? And related to that, “Do I really want to be free?”