Old Things Are Passed Away

2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

A new creature. Not a repaired one. Not the old one on better behaviour. Something new, made by God, in Christ.

The struggle is not usually believing that God forgave. It is believing that He changed anything. So we go on introducing ourselves with the old label — the addict, the failure, the one who always ruins things, the one from that family. It feels like honesty. It is actually an old passport for a country you have left.

Old things are passed away. Past tense. God is not still deciding. The change of status happened; the change of habits is following, and the two do not move at the same speed. That gap is where most discouragement lives.

Today, catch yourself using an old name and refuse it out loud. You are not lying about your past. You are telling the truth about your present.