A New Creature

The Story

Paul had once been a man named Saul, a proud religious leader who hunted down followers of Jesus and dragged them to prison. He had stood by approving while Stephen was stoned to death.

Then Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, and everything changed. The persecutor became a preacher. The man who had tried to destroy the church spent the rest of his life building it.

So when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he knew what he was talking about.

“For the love of Christ constraineth us.” Jesus died for all, so that those who live “should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”

Then he wrote one of the most hopeful sentences in Scripture.

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

And God, Paul said, has given us a job: to tell others they can be made new too. “We are ambassadors for Christ.” “Be ye reconciled to God.”

Reflection