Chapter 5 – A NEW LIFE
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)
Shortly after you receive Jesus as your savior, you may ask, “Is it really possible to know if I have eternal life?” The answer is a simple one: yes. One of the first books in the New Testament that you should read is the gospel of John. The book concludes with an assuring statement.
Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 20:30-31)
People used to put a bumper sticker on their cars that said: If God said it, I believe it, and that settles it! God’s word is true. You can believe it.
When you trusted God as your Savior and Lord, some wonderful, marvelous things happened to you. A miracle took place – and you are the miracle. You may not feel differently than you did before you believed in Jesus. You did not hear angels sing; no trumpets sounded; no fireworks exploded over your head. In fact, it may not seem like anything happened at all. Or you may have had a life-changing experience, and a whole new world opened before your very eyes. Regardless of how you feel, God did some astonishing things in your life.
CHILD OF GOD/BROTHER-SISTER OF JESUS
You are a child of God. (John 1:12) When you believed in Jesus, you were adopted into his family, a family that goes back thousands of years with as many members as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beaches. Not only do you have a relationship with Jesus, but now, you are a son or daughter of the Almighty. God is not only your Creator, but he is also your Father in heaven. And the paternal relationship is not a stiff, formal one. Rather, you have a “Daddy” relationship with the Maker of the Universe. You may have pictured God in the past as an old grandfather in a rocking chair or as a cosmic policeman ready to pull you over every time you did something bad. But this picture of God is different. God is a loving father, and you are his child.
You may have had a very poor relationship with your father. It may be difficult to imagine a father who loves you, adores you, and desires the best for you. You may have had a father who abused you – emotionally or physically or both. God is not that father; God is the opposite of that father. God is a good, good father.
“Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)
Pay attention to this truth: God is a father, like a daddy, and you are his child in the best daddy-child relationship you could ever imagine.
“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as [children] by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:13)
Abba” is the ancient Hebrew term for “Daddy.” This close family relationship is unique, unequaled anywhere in the universe. No other religion has a familiar family relationship with its god. You belong to a family of believers – brothers and sisters in Christ.
This family of God is also known as the “body of believers,” and it is also referred to in the Bible as “the church.” You may think of a church as a building, and certainly, many buildings are called churches, but when you read about “church” in the New Testament, it is referencing a group of believers in Jesus.
Since you are a child of God, you are also an heir to all God has for you. All that he has made belongs to you.
“So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” (Galatians 4:7)
You now have God’s salvation, but not only that. You have all that results from being in a relationship with God – more than you can imagine.
There’s another incredible relationship that was created when you believed in Jesus. You now have a sibling relationship to Jesus. God is your Father, but Jesus is also your brother. The writer of Hebrews states:
“Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.’” (Hebrews 2:11-12)
The one who died on a cross, was buried for three days, rose from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of the Father is your brother. Have you ever wanted a big brother? Now, you have one.
FRIEND OF JESUS
Jesus is your savior. Jesus is your brother, but he is also your friend. A true friend, a real friend – a friend that will never leave you or abandon you or talk behind your back or “ghost” you or betray you. Proverbs says that there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18:24) One of those friends is Jesus. Jesus himself said,
“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)
You are a friend of Jesus, now and forever. A friend and a brother!
A NEW CREATION
When you believed in Jesus, a true miracle took place. God re-created you to be the person he wants you to be. You still have the same looks, the same hair, the same teeth, the same feet, but something inside your spirit transformed. God took away your sin and separated it from him as far as the east is from the west. God also put his Holy Spirit inside you. You are the home, the living place of God himself. The Bible asks,
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)
You might think, how could God live inside me? I could never please God. I’m not a good enough person to please him. I’ve done so many bad things, God could never love me like I am. Don’t be concerned about this feeling. Get rid of it. This feeling is not from God. Jesus paid the price for all your sins; God forgave them all. On the day you believed in Jesus and with his Spirit in your life, God began a remodeling program to make you the kind of person he wants you to be – a person more like him. God works in you to do the things he requires.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The old you – the way you used to think and act – is dead. It died on the day you believed in Jesus. You will realize this as you live your new life with God. Some of it will be obvious; some of it you will discover in time. You might think, what if I don’t like the new me? Relax! You’ll love the new person that God created. The new you is the person that God created you to be. He gave you a new life. Now, you get to live it. Your new life falls in line with what God’s will is for your life, and the more you discover about the new you, the more contented and fulfilled you become. (John 10:10) You will not miss the “old” you.
Also, on the day you believed in Jesus, God gave you some gifts to help you live your new life. (1 Corinthians 12) You will discover them as you live your life with him. I will explain some of them later.
NEW POWER
Because God lives inside you, (John 15:5) you have God’s power to help you live your life to its fullest. First, you now have power to deal with hard times and the trials that life brings. Have you ever felt like life has beat you down to the point where you want to give up? Have you ever felt so defeated hat you cannot get out of bed in the morning? God gives you power to confront those feelings and overcome obstacles. More than that, he gives you peace in the middle of difficult times. Power and peace.
Also, you have power to overcome temptations that might cause you to sin. Is there a bad habit with which you have battled your entire life? You now have God’s power available to you to break that habit. Addicts who believe in Jesus gain incredible power to set aside the cravings they had before knowing him. I’ve known addicts who meet Jesus and never do the things they used to do. In fact, their desire to do those things dies away.
Third, power that comes from God is able to overcome evil. There is a spiritual battle raging right now for your soul – the classic, original “good against evil” story. Your side, the good side, wins because of God’s power. Finally, God’s power will also help you do the things he commands. For example, you may be a person that loses his or her temper. You’ve fought your whole life to control it, but every attempt to do so fails. God gives you power to overcome things just like that.
God’s Spirit will also help you practice the disciplines explained in this book.
“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7)
LIFE THAT LASTS FOREVER (Eternal life)
God gave you eternal life. Your new life in Jesus lasts forever – for eternity. The Bible puts it this way:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
Eternal life is yours. It is a gift from God. The gift is free. You did not buy it; you did nothing to warrant it or deserve it or earn it. God, by his grace, gave it to you. Even the faith that you had to believe in Jesus was a gift from God.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Eternal life lasts forever – and “forever” means forever. This is important to understand. Nothing can take it away. Jesus made this very clear.
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-29)
The Father will never forsake you, forget you, nor abandon you. Being in the Father’s hand is a strong and secure place to be. Not only does God hold you in his hand, your name is written on his hand. God proclaimed this promise for his people in ancient times. God makes this promise to you.
But Zion said, “The Lord has abandoned me,
And the Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.
(Isaiah 49:14-16)
When one repents and believes in Jesus, that person – man, woman, boy, girl – is sealed with a promise by the Holy Spirit of God. Your sealing entails three things: First, the sealing by the Holy Spirit declares the promise of God that you possess eternal life though Jesus:
“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise….” (Ephesians 1:13)
In the ancient days, when a king issued a proclamation, he sealed it with his ring. The seal was the sign of his authority and bore with it an understanding: This is from the king! Do not alter this proclamation! In the same way, when God promises something, he keeps his promise – always.
Second, the seal on your life means that one day you will be redeemed.
“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30)
One day in the future, you will be presented to God by Jesus. You belong to Jesus (He purchased you with His blood.) Because you are sealed by the Holy Spirit as belonging to Jesus, you will be redeemed before God by Jesus, and God will give you all that is promised to you which you have not yet received.
To better understand the meaning of “redeemed” and “redemption,” let me tell you a personal story. When I was a kid, my brother and I collected soda pop bottles on Saturday morning. After the Friday night football games at the high school, the roads were littered with them. The reason we collected them was because they were worth money. Small ones were worth two cents, larger ones were worth a nickel. We would collect them in paper bags and take them to a store where the bottles would be turned in and redeemed. Then, we’d rush off to a store that sold baseball cards in a pack with a stick of pink bubble gum, buy as many as we could and spend what was left on penny licorice –black for me, red for my brother.
In the same way, a day will come when all believers in Jesus, owned by Jesus and sealed by the Holy Spirit, are presented before God the Father by Jesus Christ, and on that day, we will be redeemed. Jesus will say, “This one is mine. I purchased him or her with my blood. They are made perfect through me. And I made a promise to redeem them.” And God will accept us because of his promise to do so – an agreement between God the Father and Jesus the Son and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Paul introduces a legal term in a letter to the Church at Corinth to describe the promise of God and the believer’s relationship with Him. (Greek word ahead.)
“…and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a pledge (harrabóna).” (2 Corinthians 1:22)
The ESV and NIV Bibles translate the Greek word harrabóna as “guarantee.” The believer in Jesus is assured that he or she will go to heaven when they die. Because of Paul’s use of this legal term, it emphasizes the gravity of the transaction between God the Father, Jesus the Son, and you, to whom have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. A contract has been made, the seal has been stamped, and the promise will one day be fulfilled.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (John 5:24)
Therefore, there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)
In your spiritual journey, you will cross paths with people who believe that your salvation is transitory and you can lose it, regain it, lose it again, regain it – back and forth. They will use some Bible verses taken out of context to support their view.[1] This is called “proof-texting” and proof-texting is the enemy of good theology (the study of God.)
If someone confuses you by telling you that you can lose your salvation, come back to this chapter. You belong to God. Your salvation was initiated by God the Father, accomplished by Jesus through his blood, his death, and his resurrection, and then was sealed for all time by the Holy Spirit of promise. There is nothing you, as a mere mortal, can do to break apart or dissolve the salvation of God.
For He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,” so that we confidently say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)
Let’s review. When you believed in Jesus, you became a child of God, a member of a new family, and a friend and sibling of Jesus. You received power to live a righteous life, and you received a life with God that lasts forever that can never be taken away.
Now that you know you have a new life and know where you stand with God, let’s keep going. Onward, forward!
[1] Context is SO important when interpreting the Bible. Remember, the New Testament was written in the first century to first century readers. So, when we interpret the Bible, we first look at what the message meant to those reading/listening to the passage in the first century. Then, we can extrapolate and apply what the passage means to us today. I will show you in the next chapter what happens when teachers rip passages out of context.