Refusing Fancy Paperweight Status
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! -2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! -2 Corinthians 5:17, CSB
Most Americans have a fancy paperweight. Most are not super heavy but they will do the job of holding down a page in a decent breeze. They come in differing shapes, sizes and colors. They can be personalized with all manner of cases and sleeves and protectors. They are often rather expensive given their relatively small size. They require almost constant updating and upgrading. In fact, most of these paperweights only last 2 or 3 years and then have to be replaced altogether, if you can wait that long. I am, of course, referring to the smartphone you have somewhere near you (or in your hand reading this blog!). Have you ever been in a place without cellular or Wi-Fi access, or a power cable to charge your phone for a day or two? If so, you’ve come to realize the paperweight status of your phone. Without power and without some external way to allow your phone the capacity to communicate beyond itself, you have a very expensive paperweight. It becomes a block of fancy glass and plastic and not a whole lot more. Now take that same block of material and plug it into a charger and give it the ability to communicate outside of itself and suddenly, the thing comes to life! It does stuff you could only imagine it doing, even 5 years ago. All at once, the old thing which is rather useless becomes a new thing with so much potential for productivity and communication and connection to the user. And once you realized what it does to charge and connect your cellphone to external communication capabilities, you probably don’t want it to become a paperweight again. Well, okay there are probably some days when that might be helpful in fact! But, for the sake of this analogy, let’s not think of that moment right now. Rather, understand this, without external things bringing it ‘life’ and ‘connection’ your cellphone has little useful potential. But, with power and connection for communication, your cellphone quickly becomes a device by which you interact with people and information. So it is with the Christian. Without Jesus’ life and connection, we are unable to realize our created for purposes and potential. You and I cannot live the kind of life that Jesus died to give us, a life not lived for ourselves but for Him. There is only one way for that to happen. We must have Jesus’ life in us. His life is the power and connection to Divine life that we must have to realize new life. This new life, though, is not something we have to try harder to realize. It’s something we must die to receive. We must die to ourselves. Our agenda. Our self-kingdom must go away if we want Jesus’ kingdom to arise in us. That’s what living in Christ means in the practical sense. On the street level it is me dying so Jesus’ life can reanimate me. The really good news is, this is in fact God’s plan. (see Galatians 2:20) So, let’s make 2023 a year where we die to our fancy paperweight status. Let’s make the new year a year full of new life!
When anyone lives in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone! The new is here! -2 Corinthians 5:17, NIrV