If I seem to change, it has nothing to do with the new year. It has everything to do with new life, new birth, and a new mind.
I already hear some of you chomping on thoughts like, "I thought she had been a believer for a long time-- but here, she's claiming a recent 'new birth.' What craziness is she learning at that seminary? The liberals must've got her already." Relax, and read on.
Gaining a new life and a new mind in Christ aren't quick little chemical processes that occur at the moment of salvation; if they were, Christians would be perfectly just and righteous when they get up from the prayer bench. As we all know, that isn't the case. We believers still struggle. We struggle not to curse the guy who cuts us off on the interstate, we struggle to forgive the family member who systematically ruins every annual attempt at a nice Christmas meal, and we struggle to put down the box of donuts in the grocery store because we don't need them. We're not perfect, and despite our best efforts, we fail to represent Christ pretty miserably sometimes. Christ died so that we could be in right relationship with God, so it seems that salvation should be the antidote to sin. Yet we're still goofing up. So what happened when we prayed the prayer of repentance?
The Holy Spirit of God came to live in us when we prayed the prayer of repentance, that's what happened! The Spirit is creative, dynamic, and full of potential. This "new birth," "new life," and "renewed mind" thing isn't just whatever warm and fuzzy feeling we may have gotten when we prayed the prayer in faith-- it's the ecstatic whirring and fluttering of the Holy Spirit in us every day. We're as capable of a brand-new life 60 years into the Christian journey as we were the day we first called upon the Lord. The Spirit of God which is in us is dynamic, constantly in flux, urging us toward both fulfillment in our personal vocations and the corporate purpose of the body of Christ. Being 'born again' isn't a moment, it's an experience. And I plan to grow and hurt and laugh and sweat and savor every minute of it. Undoubtedly, this is the kind of experience which changes a person.
