In just a bit we'll start a new year (where did the old one go?). I think that most people would agree that new is good. The problem however, is that it doesn't stay that way. New becomes old and we're right back where we started. What we need is a new that stays new.

• We experience a new birth where we become a new creation (John 3; 2 Corinthians 5). 
• We live under a new covenant. 
• We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). 
• Though outwardly we are decaying, inwardly we are being renewed daily (2 Corinthians 4:16). 
• Even creation waits to be renewed (Romans 8:18-25).
• God is making all things new (Revelation 21:5).

This newness is unlike any other newness because it is rooted in the resurrection. Resurrection is where something was alive (new), then dead, and becomes alive again --- never to die (uniquely new). That’s what happened to Jesus (Revelation 1:18). It’s what happened to us when the old person was buried at baptism and the new person was raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:8-11; John 11:25-26). We will die physically (unless Christ returns first), but in the words of Jesus, "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies." We have a newness that death can't touch!

It's important to recognize that the resurrection of Jesus doesn’t mean a new life for us after our physical deaths, it means a new kind of life that begins when we connect with Christ at baptism. We share right now in the resurrected life that our Lord has (Romans 6:13)! Our Father is continuing through His church (the body of Christ), the work He began in raising Jesus from the dead. He is raising the dead. He is making all things new. And we're a part of it!