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I Gave My Life To Jesus and I Still Don't Know What I'm Doing

 

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

2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

 

I used to think God was grading me. I figured I had to clean myself up and earn my spot before He'd really want me.

Maybe you know that feeling. You prayed the prayer two weeks ago and meant every word of it. By Monday the old thoughts were right back, and your temper got the best of you over nothing.

You kept waiting to feel different. It never happened.

You never got told what happens next, so you built the list yourself. Read the Bible every morning, pray longer than you did yesterday, and you better have an answer ready when somebody asks you something hard about God. Two weeks in and you're already behind.

You're afraid God's watching to see if it sticks.

When is it supposed to start feeling real?

A baby was born last night.

That baby hasn't done a thing. He can't even hold his own head up, and everybody in the room already loves him.

Paul says you already are a new creature. He wrote it in the present tense.

Old things are passed away. That's past tense. Behold, all things are become new.

Everything you used to be was nailed to a cross with Him.

God isn't waiting for you to become new. He already made you new, and He said so long before you felt it.

Peter gives you a picture of where you are:

"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:"

1 Peter 2:2 (KJV)

Nobody sets a steak in front of a newborn. God gives milk. He gives it a little at a time to a child who can't say thank you yet.

Paul tells you whose job this is:

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"

Philippians 1:6 (KJV)

He began it. He's the one who finishes it. It was never your job.

He even tells you when it gets finished, on the day of Jesus Christ. You're not behind at two weeks.

Go back to Peter's verse and read the last two words. Grow thereby. That just means by the milk, and Peter tells you in that same verse that the milk is the word. You grow by the word God hands you.

The people you keep measuring yourself against were newborns once. Nobody comes out of the womb knowing the names of the books.

Here's how to start this week:

1. Quit waiting for the feeling.

God did something to you the day you believed, and it had nothing to do with goosebumps. A newborn doesn't feel born, they just are. Go by what He said about you and let your feelings catch up in their own time.

2. Take the milk.

Read a little. Five minutes in the book of John with your coffee. Talk to Him in your own words while you do the dishes. That's exactly the amount you can hold right now.

3. Hand Him the list.

You wrote down everything a real Christian is supposed to do. Give it to Him today. He's not grading you on it. You're two weeks old, and He's raised a lot of kids.

PRAYER

Lord, I said yes to You, and I've been afraid ever since that it didn't take.

Thank You that You called me new.

Thank You that Jesus carried who I used to be down into death, and that when He rose I rose in Him.

Today I'm putting down the list You never asked me to carry.

Feed me like the newborn I am.

Grow me at Your pace, and teach me to want You more than I want to feel something.

I trust the work You've already started in me.

In Jesus' beautiful name we pray. Amen.