Why You Can’t Stay the Same Once You Meet Christ

[David]

​

You and I live in an age of appearances. Social media is all about the external, how you look, what you post, where you’ve been. But God is not impressed by outward show, by clean profiles and filtered lives. He looks on the heart. “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart,” Paul wrote (1 Samuel 16:7). That truth should terrify us, because before the Lord, no one and nothing is hidden. He sees our every thought, motive, and secret.

We tremble at that thought because we know we have a message to declare. “Since we have such hope,” Paul says, “we are of a bold mind, and speak freely” (2 Corinthians 5:11). The fear of the Lord drives us to persuade others. This is no game we’re playing, no temporal life we’re living. Eternity is at stake. Every soul will appear before the judgment seat of God, but only those who are in Christ will stand forgiven.

In a world where people are trying to look spiritual, moral, or successful on the outside, it is not enough. The question is not what you say you believe or how good you try to be. The question is whether your life has been transformed by the love of Christ.

Paul says, “The love of Christ constrains us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). We know that Jesus died for all, that every man, woman, and child in the whole wide world is standing on the prayers of the early church. Through the love of Christ, we have been called from darkness into His marvelous light, called to no longer live for self but for Him who died and rose again. That changes everything.

You see, once you come to Christ, you no longer live for temporary pleasures or fleeting approval or self-centered ambitions. You live for the One who loved you enough to lay down His life on your behalf. This is why Paul adds this sobering truth: “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). This is not a self-improvement plan, a personal growth strategy. No, this is the work of God Himself in your life. He makes all things new.

God takes what is dead in sin and makes it alive in Christ. He gives you a new heart, a new mind, and a new direction for life. But God doesn’t just save us to sit quietly on our knees. He entrusts us with a mission. “God… hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). We are called to be His ambassadors in a broken world, carrying the message that God through Jesus Christ is reconciling the world to Himself.

No more pretending. No more living with the lie that you can cover up sin with good works or religious rituals or whatever the world tries to sell you. Real forgiveness, real peace of conscience comes when you are reconciled to God through the blood of His Son.

Paul concludes this passage with a desperate plea, “We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Why? Paul answers in verse 21, “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Jesus, who knew no sin, was made sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the heart of the gospel. Your sin put on Him, His righteousness put on you. And this is not just an ancient truth from the pages of a dusty old book. This is the truth for today, the truth for right now. Stop living for the approval of men. Start living for the glory of God. Stop clinging to the old life that cannot save you and come to Christ, who makes all things new. Eternity is at stake. Be reconciled to God today.