Implications of Taking Receipt: The New Creation

Continuing on the subject of Taking Receipt of having been born again, is also understanding the need to take receipt of having become a new creation.  It's been the same for me in this area as it had been in the former: knowing it was true, but not taking full ownership in a deeply personal way.  Kind of makes that old saying about someone wanting to have their cake and eat it, too, sound so foolish!  It always irritated me to hear someone say that.  Why wouldn't a person want to eat their cake, when in fact that is the purpose of having the cake in the first place? Owning the cake, seeing how delicious it looks, smelling the  aroma, anticipating having that first bite, then another.... this is receiving the cake on a deeply personal level.  If you have it and never taste it,  boy, what a loss!   It's the same thing in whether or not we lay hold of and enjoy the truth concerning the benefits of having become a new creation.

Psalm 34:8-9  (this so fits here):

8 O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.9 O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.         (The whole Psalm is really good. To read it, click here. You might want to check out The Message version, too, if you go to the site, it's great!)

 So how do we take receipt and taste His Goodness in a practical way?  We start by receiving it by faith just because God said it.  It is only the beginning, but in every adventure we have to start  somewhere, and since faith is the currency of heaven, that's how we begin to exchange what we have for what He says we can have-actually what He's already provided. We've just been so limited by our own humanity-by generational issues, sorrow, loss, lack, pain, sickness-by what we've experienced in this life that's so contrary to what His desire for us is.  Our mind really does need to be renewed to who He made us to be in the new creation we became when we first invited Him into our hearts.  Our spirit man really was born again, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light in Christ Jesus in that transaction we made with Him in by faith!

It is so.  Now our minds need to be renewed to the language of the new kingdom we've been translated into.  If we moved to another country here on earth, we'd need to learn the native language in order to be prosperous there.  It's no different in this instance.  God says His thoughts and His ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9) and we need to learn and understand His language.  He's not only given us His written Word, He's given His Spirit to teach us  (John 14:26) that new way of speaking and thinking.

There's so much more that could be said about this, but the most important thing is personally coming into agreement with what God brought to pass in us when we received Him.  Knowing that the old man really died and was done away with at the cross of Jesus and when we accepted Him that benefit was added to us-the old is gone, the new has come and receiving this basic truth, tasting it, enjoying it will begin to transform us as we go.  Yes, and it is simply because God says it, we agree with it and are transformed by it because the Word of God has the power in it to bring itself to pass.  What a wonderful truth to rest in!  

And I can tell you this, even when we don't feel or see any changes, and we continue- just believing the truth no matter what-one day we will become aware that there has been change, and not because we were striving to bring it to pass.   It's called GRACE!  Woohoo!  This really makes me excited because most of my life I was a striver.  I was going to get the job done somehow no matter what it took.  My motto had been,  just let me rest a little and regain a little strength and stamina and I'll be ready to jump back in and "get 'er done."  That's country folk's talk for, "completing the task at hand. "  


This journey of discovery and change,  healing and rest isn't always easy,  but the benefits far outweigh the difficulty.  I can attest to the fact that receiving His way of seeing and doing is so much better than anything we could come up with on our own!  I'll end this with one of my all time favorite verses since I discovered how it reads in The Message...and I've used it a number of times in this blog, but you can't get too much of a good, calorie-free taste of Goodness!  So here it is:

Matthew 11:27-30The Message (MSG)

27 Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.

28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (my emphasis)