“It will only be when my story is fully dead that the spirit of the new story will fully live in me” says Pastor Saji George. What prompts him to speak of the death of one story and the life of another? The reality of the Christ’s message to an individual.

The message that Christ brought to the world is that alongside the story that they see – one of decay and corruption found in all of creation resulting from the sin of one man – there is another story, another reality. This God-initiated story reveals God giving His Son as a payment for all offenses mankind has made against Him and receiving all sinners who accept this payment – His Son, Who is now and forevermore to be found in Human form. Why? To re-own His creation for a better destiny – one where His creation find their fulfillment in Him, or better, the way things were supposed to be.

How? There is one decision every human being is responsible for whether he or she accepts it or not: to reject or accept the invitation into the new story, the ultimate reality. Whoever accepts or trusts what God did in and through His Son as their means of salvation are in (John 3:16). This means that the sins of the individual are no longer counted against her: Her idolatry (when she valued herself and her possessions as ultimate), her murder (when she despised others for “having it better”), etc. Whether he or she looks like it or not the fact of the matter is that before God the individual is no longer a sinner but a saint. Entrance into the new story has been granted!

“…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…” (2 Cor. 5:17-18)

Application Questions

1. If you haven’t considered accepting God’s payment for sin what exactly is keeping you? Is it long enough to put on paper? Would you consider praying to God Himself about any of your hindrances even if they are utter frustrations? He hears everyone!

2. Entrance into the New Story (also known as the new birth which Christ-followers have through Jesus Christ in and by His Spirit) means that every Christ-follower, in their response to what God has done, be living in the new story (new man) and not the old (old man).

What are hindrances that keep you from doing this? Is it unconfessed sin? Are they addictions and habits that do not reflect the fact that you are a child of God?

If so, what are you actively doing now (not planning on) to change this?

3. Being a Christ-follower means that we are in His new story. If we need to die to the old story (and that continually), what exactly are we to be doing? What area of our lives does this concern? Read Romans chapter 6, also See Romans 7:4; Gal 2:19; and Col 2:20-21