Happy New You!

Midweek Study with Pastor Edith
January 3, 2024
2 Corinthians 5:11-17

As I write this, I am sitting at my desk near a window and I see a bright blue sky with sunshine all around, my phone says it is a cool 41 degrees. Why is weather so important to me today? Well, I am reflecting on years past as I began a new year and as I was reading the above scripture I remembered just such a day in Idaho back in the mid 1980’s.

I was stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base, and relatively new to the military scene. Fortunately several of the other female Airmen befriended me and I felt more at home in this high-plains desert where, as my future husband would say, are as many women as you see trees. The point being there was lots of sage brush, lots of sand, and very few trees – get the point?

It was around Christmas week that all us girls gathered to help a friend of ours who was lucky enough to get leave to go back home for Christmas, pack for her trip. The rest of us had to stay on base.

We always made a big party out of anyone’s good fortune, and that day it was a riot of clothes flying everywhere, decisions about what to pack and what to leave behind as only one suitcase was allowed on the transport. What a time we had! When Christmas leave was over, our friend did not return to us. It seems there was black ice on a road she was travelling and she was killed in her car heading back to her parent’s house after visiting her fiancé. Needless to say, we were all devastated. In my grieving, I posted on her white board a portion of our scripture for today; “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

I realize that the context of this scripture is the Apostle Paul telling the First Century believers in Corinth that if they profess Christ, the old life they had of worshipping idols, taking advantage of people, being selfish etc. had to stop, because that is not the way of Christ. When a person comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ, that old life passes away and a new life begins.

I was in my early 20’s when I experienced this sudden loss of a friend, I realized how important it was to make the most of the time we have. I am so thankful we celebrated and shared our love for her before she went home (literally).

Here’s a New Year’s thought; spend some time intentionally loving the people around you. Celebrate the life God has given you, show and tell people that you care. Just as the previous verse in our scripture today reads; “we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view…” How about we begin this year asking the Holy Spirit to help us see people the way God sees them; all created in His image, all loved unconditionally, all needing the hope of salvation that comes through Christ Jesus, God’s only begotten son.

Happy New Year! Happy New You!