You’ve spent hours getting ready. Your hair is done. Your makeup is perfect. Your gown has been perfectly tailored and pressed. Shoes. Jewelry. It’s all there. You walk down the street so proud of the new you. Everything has changed.

You come upon a dark alley and take a few tentative steps in. Before too long, you’re standing in front of a dumpster. The smell is revolting, but you plunge ahead anyway. An old crate serves as a step. You flip the lid open and dive right in.

Disgusting. Right? Yet we do it all the time.

What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)

The moment we invite Jesus to be a part of our lives, we’re that person who’s all dressed up. Everything is new. Everything is different. And every time we return to our old ways, it’s like launching ourselves into that dank, depressing dumpster full of the old things that God already removed from our lives.

Is it difficult to leave those things behind? Of course it is. To start any sort of new life is rarely easy. It’s why Paul told the Romans to constantly be renewing their minds. Just because our spirits were made instantly new doesn’t mean that our minds don’t have to catch up. The renewal process there is continual.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

Romans 12:2 (NLT)

To embrace a new life means to let an old one go. That old you stinks. It belongs in the dumpster. The new you has no business chasing after the things that made you who you used to be. We should be chasing after the new things God has placed before us—the things that are becoming of our new selves.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.

Hebrews 12:1 (NLT)

Jesus came in his tuxedo and pulled us out of the dumpster when we were stinking of sin and shame. He came to us so we wouldn’t have to return to that old life. In order to maintain our miraculously new lives, we need to turn away from the past that weighs us down and look ahead.

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends on from start to finish.

Hebrews 12:2a (NLT)

So brush the dirt and stench off of your new self and quit your dumpster diving. It’s time to live a new life, leaving the old behind.

Daily Bible reading: Proverbs 23-24, 2 Corinthians 5