His little voice piped up from the back seat: “Mommy, what did her left in the river?”
My 6-year-old son and I were driving to school yesterday morning and I’d turned the volume up on the radio to catch the last part of Jamie McDonald’s song “Left It in the River.” As the last notes faded away, my son asked that question. I smiled.
“Well, buddy, she’s singing about the change that happened in her life after she met Jesus. She got baptized and she left the yucky things from her life in the river and found a better way of life walking with Jesus.”
“Ohhh.” A very wise sounding reply from my boy had me grinning.
I’m sure it’s difficult to grasp at 6, but do we grasp it at any other age completely?
Can you wrap your head around the fact that in Christ, you are a new creation when you accept Him?
We constantly fight the old self, even after baptism. But the truth is, we are a new creation in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
You don’t have to stay captive to the old ways once you accept Christ.
You can embrace a new way of living and take a new path away from your old life. You can let the water of the river wash away the old self and put on your new self when you come up out of the water. And you should celebrate it!
If you haven’t heard the song “Left it in the River” yet, I’m linking it below so that you can, because it’s truly a celebration of freedom in Christ.
Starting new can happen any time you choose. You can leave behind whatever “it” is that’s dragging you down and walk in the freedom that comes from relationship with Christ.
You’ll mess up. You’ll be tempted to go back to the old ways because they’re comfortable and familiar. But you don’t have to stay there. You can find freedom and begin again.
“Where is my guilt? Where is my shame? I left it in the river!”
You can too.
Blessings,
~Lynne
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