I made this Hillsong song my prayer two years ago in a season of crushing and pressing. 

In the crushing
In the pressing
You are making new wine
In the soil I now surrender
You are breaking new ground

So I yield to You and to Your careful hand
When I trust You I don’t need to understand

In His mercy, He brought newness in the last year. He restored me and healed me of so much brokenness.

He showed me how I had driven myself into the ground with my need to be in control. He exposed the strangling tendrils of control, the destructive hold of self-criticism and hate. 

He softened my calloused but broken heart, and readied me to receive a newness I’ve never experienced. I can’t think of a time when I felt like a new creation more than now. He answered my prayer to bring new wine out of my life.

The healing, the restoration, the resulting transformation were exciting and fresh. But what a struggle it has been to live in the newness that God has brought.

Since moving back to Singapore, I’ve found this newness threatened when faced with the oldness of my habits and circumstances. It’s difficult to believe that the past year in London actually happened.

An example of this would be the way I’m critical of people here. I find myself often taking the moral high ground. I comment on people’s behaviour, I tell my mum what to do, I criticise the decisions of others… I mean, what is all of this?

Paul writes about the certainty of our newness in Christ when He reconciled us to God. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is dead; the new is here.

But Paul also talks about this life being a battle – we’re in a spiritual fight. It’s naive to think that facing the daily onslaught of a world that is broken and sinful would be easy, even if I’ve come home as a new person. 

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-19 ESV)

I often think about forming a Christian agricultural community isolated from the world where there are no smartphones or Internet, and we live as one with nature. That would solve everything wouldn’t it?

Then I remember that we’re called to be salt and light to the world, and the Church is God’s salvation plan for the broken world. Paul calls us “ambassadors for Christ” as though God were making His appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20 ESV).

So how can we continue to be the new creations in Christ? Here are some of my reflections.

REMEMBER

Literally, the whole passage of Deuteronomy 8 is Moses’ exhortation to the people of Israel to remember (I suggest reading it; it’s such a powerful passage).

“And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.” (Deuteronomy 8:2 ESV)

The Israelites, as the rest of the OT would reveal, would soon forget (again and again) and turn to other gods. Some of the laments that God has towards the people is their forgetfulness, and in Jeremiah He passes judgement on their belief in their own works, forgetting He is the Creator God who had called them His own.

The single most powerful way of living as new creations in Christ is to remember what God has done for us. Remember the “Egypt” that He delivered us from, remember the brokenness that we were in when He met with us, remember the freedom that we experienced when we learnt of His grace. Remember the Cross.

The single most powerful way of living as new creations in Christ is to remember what God has done for us.

I often listen to songs that have spoken to me deeply in those seasons of brokenness and hopelessness to remind myself of how He has delivered me. The other thing I started doing is to be in the habit of recording prayers.

When I’m feeling frustrated or on the edge of slipping back into old ways of thinking, I listen to those prayers of faith and prophetic declarations that people prayed over me. And I find that my spirit is lifted again.

WALK

Walk in the newness. Do not let ourselves be swept away by the usual things, by culture, by what people say. Paul says in Ephesians 6 to stand firm, to stay strong in the currents of life and society.

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:1-4 ESV)

As new creations in Christ, we’ve to make conscious choices that would honour Him, to turn our backs on our sinful ways so that we can continue to walk in the newness of life.

Choosing to do things differently is difficult. Some of these decisions I’ve had to make lately are painful. I’m dealing with the grief of having to surrender certain friendships I’ve held on to so tightly for the last few years.

Choosing to stay silent instead of commenting on my parents’ behaviour is proving to be a real battle. And yet, there is such peace and assurance in choosing Him, and choosing to walk in the newness of life.

On Tuesday night, I felt the Spirit’s nudging to open my Bible and to process some of these emotions I’ve been bottling up inside. And He met with me.

In the valley, in the quiet, in the difficult decisions that we’ve to make to honour God and to be holy, He will speak with us. He is a God who loves so unconditionally, so powerfully. He overwhelms us with His grace. He is good.

He is the loving Father who cares, who knows, who sees, who calls you by name. He loves the big decisions you make to surrender more of yourself to Him. He loves the tiny acts you do to draw yourself a little closer to Him. He loves the unique way you worship Him. He does not despise your simplicity and He is greater than the complexities of life. He is Lord over all.

We do not walk in this newness because of our own strength, but because of who we are in Christ.

Remember the finished work of the Cross and the certainty of our newness in Him. Remember His great power and His great faithfulness. We do not walk in this newness because of our own strength, but because of who we are in Christ. We are His.

He says to us “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)

As we continue to live as new creations in Christ, to contend with the forces of this world, to struggle against the old, to run this race with our eyes fixed on the right reward, to find new wineskins for the new wine, I pray that we’ll know the immeasurable worth of knowing Christ Jesus.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

^“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21)

This article was first published on Delphne’s blog and is republished with permission.