Newness

Surprise! I was a cheerleader in high school.

Pompom waving, pleated skirt wearing, "Let's Go Stallions!" cheerleader. In addition to Friday night lights, my team competed three out of the four years I spent on Varsity. As you can probably imagine, competitive cheerleading requires an incredible amount of gym time. After tryouts in April/May, the team goes to camp, then summer practices, then competition routine practice in August. We would spend months in the incredible heat of a Florida Fall just trying to hit that stunt, tumble pass, motion, one more time. 

But sometimes it was hard.

Hard to separate one bad two minutes and thirty seconds from another.

I'd get hit in a stunt or fall trying to tumble and that bruise would stay with me through the next run and the next and the next. Why? Because I couldn't separate my past failures from my future. I let what was already done and gone get in my head and sometimes I couldn't shake it.

But in those situations I have to remember:

"And since we died with Christ, we know that we will also live with Him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and He will never die again. Death no longer has any power over Him. When He died, He died once to break the power of sin. But now that He lives, He lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ." Romans 6:8-11

There are too many people trying to live in the grave of their pasts. The thing about living though, is that you can't do it while you're dead.  2 Corinthians says you have been made a new creation. That's it. New, beautiful, life-giving, is what you are. Who you were is gone in the eyes of my Jesus. Listen, if we are going to live in the newness of life we have got to get up and walk out of that grave. Leave the past behind because we have been made new. WWJD? Walk out of an empty grave, that's what.

I encourage you to walk out of your grave today. There's so much that only you can do while you grace this earth with the beauty of Him through you. Regardless of what anyone else has said to you, you are loved and the world is super lucky to have you.

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