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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old had gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).

It used to be, and might still be, that the first skill a soldier learns in the Army is how to walk! That's right! Before ever learning to fire a weapon, dig a fox hole, or survive in combat, a soldier must first learn to walk. After all, marching is nothing more than walking in a certain way. A soldier learns to walk to the rhythm being set by the leader. Thereby, learning to walk in the same direction in which the leader is heading and to walk according to the leader’s cadence.

Our Christian life is much the same. When we become soldiers for the Lord, the first thing we do is learn to walk according to His cadence. Disciples listen intently to the voice of the master and walk in the dignity and uprightness of the Lord we serve.

But notice something important here. It is the first thing after; after we come to know our Lord and Saviour Jesus. We must never forget that process of coming to know Him. And as we learn to walk in his rhythms we must always return there. Our text says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God… God works first. He reconciles us to Himself and gives us a new identity. We are His sons and daughters.

As his daughters and sons, we are gifted with the Holy Spirit who is our comforter, encourager and teacher and the source of our spiritual energy. Only because we have been made new in Christ and only because we are empowered by the Spirit can we learn how to walk.

I think we make two mistakes here. On the one hand, we think we must learn how-to walk-in step with Jesus before God will claim us as his own. God always claims us first, then we learn how to walk. And here is the second mistake, we do not start walking in a new direction nor to a new cadence. Because we are now in Christ, reconciled to God, we need to start walking differently.

Our new identity in Christ and our new rhythm for life go together. We cannot have one without the other.

Many of us come to the Christian life with a lot of negative baggage, and some us of pick-up stuff along the way. When we hear this teaching of being a new creation, we think that Jesus should just get rid of it all, giving us a clean slate. But that rarely happens. As Ann LaMott once wrote, “Give up hope of having a better past.” We cannot fix the past. But in Jesus we can have a better future which is free from the hurts of the past. In Jesus we have a new identity. The old is gone, the new has come. Let’s walk!