Refreshed!

Some of you were once [living sinful lives]. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. — 1 Corinthians 6:11 NLT

The verses leading up to this passage give a laundry list of sins (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Then Paul makes two points using the verb “were.” His first point is that some of us “were” people habitually living those sins! The second point is that now, however, we live with a new reality because we “were” cleansed and made right with God. We can call this “the grace of were.” We are no longer guilty of the sin we used to commit. We are no longer under the condemnation of our rebellion and failures. We are no longer slaves to the old way of life, to what we “were”! Rather, because the Holy Spirit entered our lives to sanctify us — to make us holy, new, clean, pure, valuable — we ARE holy and right with God. Each of us is a new creation and lives in a whole new world (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV). Such is the power of the Holy Spirit and the gift of the Spirit’s grace and presence.

Father, thank you that I am not who I used to be. Thank you that all the old is gone and the new has come. I pray that I will live out this new life in holiness and honor, empowered by the Holy Spirit and conformed each day to be like my Savior, Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.