Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. – I Peter 1:3
One of the most marvelous aspects of a relationship with Jesus Christ is that we can be positively affected in every area of our lives. From the new birth to walking in the power of the resurrection, we can move forward in confident faith that the Lord is with us and that we can live daily in spiritual victory. Is this to say that we won’t still have some setbacks along the way? The answer is, certainly not. We will indeed meet with problems, trials, heartaches, frustrations, and failures of all sorts. The good news, however, is that in Christ we now have a resource that was previously unavailable. We have the power of the Holy Spirit to pick us up when we fall, place our feet back on track, and get us moving forward again in the right direction.
I recall when I was a teenager growing up in Dayton, Ohio, that I went driving by myself for the first time in the downtown area. Like many larger cities, most of the streets downtown are one-way. I don’t how it happened, but somehow I ended up heading the wrong direction on a one-way street. I had a horrible feeling that something was terribly amiss when I saw all the traffic coming right toward me. I also remember someone on the sidewalk yelling at me, “Hey! We got a one-way! We got a one-way!” I quickly got the message, pulled to the side of the street and turned the car around. What a relief to be going the right way.
Walking daily with the Lord Jesus, and heading in the right direction, begins with receiving Him as Savior. We experience the new birth in that we are given a brand new start on life. The old is gone and we are able to walk forward with a clean slate. As we begin to grow in the Lord we start to walk in that blessed resurrection power. This power will sustain us and empower us as we traverse through the dark and difficult times of life.
