“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”  2 Corinthians 5:17, 18

A friend of mine, recovering from a deep depression, said his turn-around came when he realized, “I have a choice. I can continue to blame my upbringing, past traumatic experiences, and life’s injustices for the emotional mess I’m in, or I can focus on today and begin to take small steps of recovery.”

Like him, I got myself out of a pit of self-pity and despair by focusing on the fact that if Jesus Christ lives in me, I am a new creation. I can leave the old thought patterns behind and claim my new position in Christ. But it was a choice I had to make many times a day.

When a negative thought or temptation would come, I would say,

“That doesn’t belong to me anymore. I’ve died to that way of thinking and acting. In Christ I have received a new nature, the very righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). I am a new person.”

Then I’d replace the thought with a truth from Scripture or a song. I’d write it out and carry it in my pocket so I could say it often.

God has given to each of us the privilege of making choices and the responsibility of living with the consequences of those choices.

“Every choice we make takes us down a certain path. Either to a person that is in harmony with God and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself,” writes C.S.Lewis.

You are not born a winner. You are not born a looser. You are born a chooser.

Dear God, today I want to see myself as a new creation in Christ and make choices that honor You.

By Helen Lescheid
used by permission

FURTHER READING

• Up From Depression
• Depression Story – There is Hope
• Place of Struggle

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