.
~ Manna From Messiah ~
Pastor Ellen Mumper, Canada
,
A New Leaf or a New
Life?
On Sunday afternoons my husband and I have a
large children's ministry here. These are mostly children that have never heard
of Yeshua / Jesus Christ and have never set foot in any kind of church or synagogue.
Many of these children are from split parent homes that are on public
assistance, or even from violent homes. This past Sunday I taught the lesson
and then my husband did an object lesson. We had two leaves - one was a real
leaf from our magnolia tree and the other was a construction paper exact
tracing and cut-out of that leaf. We put them on an overhead projector and
asked if the children could tell which was the real one and which was not? They had fun guessing. One of the
Scriptures we used during this lesson was Jeremiah 13:23 - "Can the Ethiopian change
his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, that are
accustomed to do evil." My husband's point to the children with
this lesson obviously, was that many can look exactly like a believer to one
another but that God can tell the difference.
This is a new secular year. 2009's mistakes
and disappointments, and also its victories, are history. We have a new slate.
But can we really "turn over a new
leaf?" I suggest that we need not a new leaf but a new life. The above
quoted verse seems to say that since a leopard indeed cannot change what he is -
spotted, and that none of us can change our skin color, neither can a person
who is "accustomed to evil", namely the unsaved, turn over a new leaf
and do good. Obviously also, if you are reading this, you likely already have
repented of sin and received HIS life within you spiritually.
These things you know. We are born in sin
according to Scripture and we sin without being taught how to because it is in
our nature. Romans 5:12 says "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the
world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned." We understand that we are not born with personal sin, but
that we are born with the effects of sin and a nature to sin, passed down from
Adam and Eve to the whole human race. We need a new birth out of this line of
death into the line of Messiah Yeshua, which is LIFE.
What about for us who are believers? I have often pondered the verse before
the one I just quoted, in Romans 5:10. "For if, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we
shall be saved by His life." The reconciling when we were enemies,
receiving the gift of salvation from the Son (whose Name, Yeshua, exactly MEANS
'salvation') is a past gift. We became born again. The next part of the verse
states that we SHALL be saved by His life!
We need daily HIS life in us, in a continual state of restoration and renewal.
Daily as we walk in faith we are receiving His life in us which saves.
From the John 3 account of Yeshua and
Nakdimon (Nicodemus) we understand that in order to be saved, one must be born
again spiritually. At the moment of heart belief and repentance, if anyone
calls on the saving grace of the One who was lifted up on the Cross, he is born
again and becomes a new creature. II Corinthians 5:17 says "if any man be in Christ he
is a new creature- old things are passed away, behold all things are become
new." This settles our eternal destiny, but is it the end of the
story? Indeed not.
Those who have the opportunity to study the
origins of the term 'born again'
learn that it actually comes from the ancient Jewish practice of mikvah. These
were ritual baths that ran with living water (moving water). To come to the
holy Temple, to come into the presence of the Most High, one had to be clean,
ceremonially. In Temple times, the ritual baths were in constant use. Some of
these immersions were for ritual cleansing such as after childbirth or
something else natural. Some of these were because of a believer wanting a new
start before a holy God. Those coming to the temple would immerse themselves
and precede that with a repentance of heart for wrongdoing. The immersion was symbolic
of what had taken place in the heart. The Hebrew term for this is 'teshuvah'
from the word 'shuv' which means 'turn'. To come into God's presence the
repentant one would enter the water and when he left it, the priest officiating
would declare "you have been born
again." This meant that ceremonially the sin repented of was washed
away and the person was new again.
We understand that in Yeshua's death and
resurrection we now have the promise of eternal life without the old system of
sacrifices. However a believer should continually live in a state of 'teshuvah'
or repentance. It does no good to intend to turn over a 'new leaf' without
genuine teshuvah, or repentance, even for believers. We want and need His life
in us. We want and need His grace in us. We want and need more than just an
eternal destiny in the future. We need His salvation now.
So I suggest a few ideas…
ü One is that we should live in a state of
continual repentance.
ü Another is that we must get to know the God
of the Bible, not necessarily the one we have been taught all our lives and in
our churches.
We do not need to be more faithful in
services as much as in a personal walk with Him to where we KNOW when we hear
the Father's voice. How can we do this? Instead of reaching a stalemate in our
spiritual walk every year, we need to get closer. So much is said of keeping
His commandments for blessing. They are not for salvation but for blessing. So
what are His commandments? The
Psalmists spoke of His commandments as a joy, as a blessing, as grace, as
beautiful and as a delight. Many Christians have been brainwashed to believe
keeping His commandments are for Jews or are legalistic drudgery. Consider
James 1:25, then, written long after the resurrection - "But whoever looks into the
perfect law (Torah) of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."
Challenge yourself this year, not to be a
better Christian by turning over a new leaf, but by getting to know the God of
the Bible and His ways. New life!
