(Continuing) Since becoming a new creation involved a radical change in us by the grace of God, what is needed is a radical  response likewise by God's grace.  How radical? "Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God's will, what is good, pleasing and perfect" (Rom 12:2). As a new creation, our values, attitudes, behavior patterns, actions, speech, relationships, our way of judging, our life style, the way we use the gifts of creation, our work ethics, our worship and prayer--all become different, not slightly but fundamentally. 

"But those things I used to consider gain I have now reappraised as loss in the light of Christ.  I have come to rate all as loss in the light of the surpassing knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ. For his sake I have forfeited everything; I have accounted all else rubbish so that Christ may be my wealth and I may be in him" (Phil 3:7-9).

Truly, the old self has been put to death and the new person in Christ lives. "I live now,  not I, but Christ Jesus in me."

If Christ is the source of our life, then we need to heed the admonition of Paul to the Colossians: "Continue, therefore, to live in Christ Jesus the Lord, in the spirit in which you received him. Be rooted in him and built up in him, growing ever stronger in faith, as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude" (2:6-7). (to be continued)