Day 19: Stop Rehearsing the Old You
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV
“You will always struggle to live like the new person God says you are if you continually rehearse the picture of the person you used to be.” — Dr. Daniel LeBlanc
Stop Rehearsing the Old You
One of the hardest pictures to change can be the picture we have of ourselves. We may believe God can change other people, open impossible doors, heal broken lives, and perform miracles, yet still look in the mirror and see the person we used to be.
Maybe you have said things like, “I have always been this way,” or “That is just how I am.” Be careful with those words because you may be giving yesterday permission to keep defining tomorrow. Words are powerful things to release into the atmosphere and into our minds.
Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV. He did not say you are an improved version of the old creation. Something happened when you came into Christ, and God wants the picture within you to begin agreeing with what He has already done.
The problem is that our minds do not automatically forget every old picture when we are born again. We can have a new identity in Christ while still carrying old ways of thinking about ourselves. That is why our minds must be renewed.
Renewing the mind is a choice. When we choose to meditate on, believe, and receive God’s truth, our minds begin to be renewed. We push out the old thinking and begin developing new pathways of thought that agree with what God has said.
Think about how often people introduce themselves by their weakness. “I am an angry person.” “I am an addict.” “I am just insecure.” “I have always had a problem with lust.” “Everybody in my family worries, and I am the same way.”
Those struggles may describe something you have battled, but they do not have the authority to define who you are in Christ. There is a difference between saying, “I have struggled with this,” and saying, “This is who I am.”
The enemy would love for you to turn your struggle into your identity. If he can convince you that bondage is who you are, you will begin expecting yourself to live according to the picture he has painted.
That expectation can become powerful. You fail, then you see yourself as a failure. Because you see yourself as a failure, you expect to fail again. When another temptation comes, the old picture whispers, “Here we go again. You know how this always ends.”
At some point, that picture has to change. You have to stop rehearsing the old you and start seeing yourself through what Jesus has accomplished.
Paul said in Romans 6:6, “Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” Notice the language Paul uses. He does not tell us to spend the rest of our lives trying to make the old man behave better. He tells us what happened to the old man in Christ.
This does not mean Christians never struggle, stumble, or face temptation. It means our struggles no longer have the right to tell us who we are. When we fall, we get back up and bring our thinking and behavior into agreement with our identity in Christ.
I have discovered that many people are trying to defeat an old habit while still seeing themselves through an old picture. They are asking God to change their behavior while continually imagining themselves as weak, defeated, bound, rejected, or unable to change.
God wants to change the picture from the inside out. Instead of continually seeing yourself as someone trying desperately to become free, begin seeing yourself as someone Jesus has made free who is learning to walk in that freedom.
That is not pretending the struggle does not exist. It is refusing to make the struggle greater than what Christ has done.
Maybe you have fallen into the same temptation many times. The enemy will point to your history and say, “See, you will always be this way.” God points you toward Jesus and says that you are a new creation, righteousness has been given to you, the Holy Spirit lives within you, and sin no longer has the right to rule over you.
Romans 6:14 says, “For sin shall not have dominion over you.” That is a very different picture from the lie that says, “I cannot help myself.”
You are not powerless. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world, and the Holy Spirit is working within you. You can take thoughts captive, resist temptation, change old patterns, and learn to live from the new identity Jesus has given you.
Stop introducing yourself to yourself by your past. Stop rehearsing every failure as though it were proof of who you are. Your worst day does not get to name you when Jesus has already called you His own.
Today, listen to the way you talk about yourself. When you hear yourself repeating an identity that belongs to the old picture, stop and ask, “Is this what God says about me now?”
You are not imagining who you wish you could become someday. God Imagination learns to see who God says you already are in Christ. As that picture becomes clearer within you, your choices, expectations, habits, and eventually your lifestyle can begin coming into agreement with it.
The old picture may still try to appear, but you do not have to keep rehearsing it. Turn your eyes toward Jesus, agree with what He says about you, and begin living from the new picture.
Prayer
Father, thank You that I am a new creation in Christ. Holy Spirit, show me every place where I am still seeing myself through an old picture. I refuse to allow past failures, old habits, family patterns, sin, shame, or the accusations of the enemy to define me. Renew my mind until the way I see myself agrees with what You have done in me through Jesus. Teach me to live every day from my new identity in Christ. Amen.
Today’s God Imagination
I am not the person I used to be. I am a new creation in Christ, and my past does not have the authority to define my future. Sin does not have dominion over me, and I am not powerless before old habits or temptations. The Holy Spirit lives within me, and I am learning to see myself as God sees me and live from the new life Jesus has given me.
