"Enjoying Being the New You!"

Greetings, my friends.

Did you know that God loves you unconditionally and that you are a brand new creation in Christ?

God wants you to not just be the new you, but to revel in it, finding joy and excitement in your life and career.

My niece once asked me, "Uncle Tony, What does that look like?"

It's a question that many of us might have, and I'm glad she asked.  

Let's talk about it together.


Tony.

https://www.seldicompany.com/

Transcript

Enjoying Being the New You in Life and Career.

Greetings, my friends. This is Tony Williams, and welcome to SELDI, Summit Evergreen Leader Development Insights. Thank you so much for listening.

I am excited about our message today, Enjoying Being the New You in Life and Career. Enjoying Being the New You in Life and Career. Did you know that God loves you unconditionally and that you are a brand new creation in Christ? God wants you not just to be the new you, but to revel in it, finding joy and excitement in your life and career.

My niece once asked me, Uncle Tony, "What does that look like?"  It is a question that many of us might have, and I'm glad she asked. Let's talk about it together. There are three key things that we need to know.

Number one, be aware. Number two, attitude. Number three, action.

And then I'll share with you the outcome. First, we need to be aware of what we have when we ask Jesus to be our Savior and our Lord. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the new you.

The old has gone, the old you. The new is here. That's what God promises in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, when you ask Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord, you become a new creation. The old you is gone, and the new you is here right now. Therefore, number one, we have to be aware of it, aware of what happened when you asked Jesus to come into your life.

And I'm so glad that my niece asked me that question, because it caused me to think, what is the new you? First, be aware of it, and then it affects our attitude and mindset. It says, God says, so then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving. You see, this mindset and attitude enable you to experience the new you.

And then, once you are aware that you are a brand new creation in Christ, you can then walk in the same way that you received Christ. And how is that? By faith - This is the attitude.

It's by faith. When we received Christ as Savior and our Lord, His Holy Spirit comes to live on the inside of us, and it's with His Holy Spirit living in you. You are empowered to reap all the benefits of Christ living in you, the new you.

The old you is gone. The new you has come. Here's a verse that became near and dear to my heart that comes to me.

"I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I that live, but Christ lives within me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me."
 Galatians 2.20. 
Now, this awareness and this attitude, this mindset, enables us to forget about the past, forget about the old you that you were before you asked Christ to be in your life, and embrace this new you. You see, my friends, once we understand, once we become aware that when we ask Christ to come into our lives, the old you is gone away. The new person has now come.

And it's with Christ, His Holy Spirit living on the inside of you. Think about this. God's Holy Spirit lives on the inside of you.

It's in His Holy Spirit that you begin to live this new life, the new you, to revel in it, finding joy and excitement in your walk with the Lord. So, being aware of what you have, the attitude in your mind of the new you, and now you take an action. The action is that you begin to live in the new you by faith.

You, by faith in God, begin to live the new you in your life and your career, moment by moment, day by day. And how do you do that? You do it by remembering how you came to know Christ. You came to know Him by placing your faith in Him.

Someone shared with you the beauty of having a relationship with Christ. That's what I shared with my niece as she sat at the kitchen table at my mother-in-law's home. I talked about the joy, the excitement of having Jesus as Savior and Lord, and what it meant to me in my life and my career.

The message prompted her to say, Uncle Tony, what does that look like? And I'm so glad she asked because then I was able to share the truths that I'm sharing with you. God wants you to know the truth, and the truth will make you free. I'll share with you what that looks like a little later.

So, there are three things. Aware of what you have when you ask Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord. You became a brand new person at that very moment.

The attitude and understanding that His Holy Spirit came to live on the inside of you at that very moment, and He lives inside of you right now. And now you take an action. What is the action? You believe what God has said in His Word, and then you begin to act accordingly.

That's what faith is about. Believing and then acting on what God has said. So, here's what you did when you asked Christ to be your Savior and Lord.

And if you, my friend, are not at that point yet, continue to listen because this applies to everyone that God has ever created. What does the Scripture say? "The Word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart.

That is the message concerning faith that we proclaim. If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord."  That's what my niece did.

That's what I did. That's what all of you who have received Christ did. Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. You will be saved. For it is with the heart you believe and are justified. And it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved."  Romams 10: 8-10.

We've talked about three things. Aware of what we have. The attitude in our thinking.

Beginning to think a certain way and then act on what we know to be the truth that God has given us. If we do this, what does it look like? And I'm so glad you asked. There are three things I want to share with you.

Freedom, power, and God's impact. The very moment that you ask Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord, you are set free from the old nature. You're set free from the old way of doing things.

Your past, all the sins and mistakes you've made in the past, are erased in the eyes of God. Then, you experience freedom. A freedom of being released from the regret and the remorse of decisions that you wish you could make differently, and that have sometimes haunted you.

God, Jesus makes you free. Who the Son sets free is free indeed. So you begin to feel free for the first time.

And that was one of the most outstanding things that I noticed in my relationship. And I pray that you are experiencing that, my friends. Freedom.

 You are a new person in Christ. Now,  when Satan wants to tempt you by saying, "Do you remember how bad you were? Do you remember that nasty thing that you did? The way you spoke to that person? Remember your old way of life?

Proclaim your identity in Christ.

You are a new creation. Remember, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the new you. 

The old Tony Williams is gone. The person my niece used to be is no longer there. She is new. The new is here.

Here. Right now. Right now.

So you have that freedom. So you have to stand in the attitude of your mind in that freedom. And you have power.

Power of the Holy Spirit living on the inside of you. You know, one of the things I pray that I can communicate, and God enables everyone who hears this, to understand that when you ask Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord, you receive the power of God—the power of God in the presence of His Holy Spirit living on the inside of you.

He's never left you, and He never will leave you. You may not have read your Bible. You may not have done anything in a relationship, in building your relationship with God, from the moment you said, Jesus, I want you to be my Savior and my Lord.

I turn from my old ways, and I receive what you did for me. When you died on the cross and you rose from the dead to pay the penalty for my sins. At that moment, God saw you as a new creation, and God sent His Holy Spirit to live on the inside of you.

And He lives on the inside of you right now. I wrote down some names of individuals that, by the grace of God, He allowed me to impact. And that's the next thing.

God's impact. But let me go back to God's power. You want to live an exciting life.

God wants you to live a life filled with excitement, adventure, and watching Him do the impossible, because He is a God of the impossible. You want your life to take on a vibrancy. Do you want to glow with the joy of the Lord being your strength? Rest in the power of God.

Rest in the power of God, and allow Him to work through you and accomplish everything that He wants to achieve in and through your life. I began to do this around 2013, and it transformed me like a caterpillar into a butterfly. Have you ever noticed the transformation that goes on when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly? This process is a miracle that only God can do.

A little worm that's walking on the ground or crawling around a tree branch wraps itself into a cocoon, and for a moment or two or some time, that caterpillar dies and emerges as the new one. You see it working itself out of that cocoon, and all of a sudden, the caterpillar is stretching. It's stretching its wings, and it emerges as a beautiful butterfly.

It takes wings and flies away. Who could create something like that but our God? The power of the Holy Spirit enables you, my friend, to be transformed in your thinking, how you act, and how you respond in every way in your life and career. Your career will take on a whole new dimension.

Your leadership, whatever form of leadership that may be. You may be a mother raising children. You may be a leader leading a multi-billion-dollar corporation.

You may be starting in a new assignment or running and leading your own business. Everything will take on a new dimension. Your relationships with your family will take on a whole new dimension.

Everything about you will become infused with the power of God, and then you're going to have an impact. Look at this. Listen to this.

It's God's impact. It's the Holy Spirit of God working in you to impact people as you go. I was affecting my niece as I went.

I went from one state to another state, and she just happened to be there for a visit. I was able to share the truth with her that I'm sharing with you, the truth that someone shared with me, and you, too, have the opportunity to do the same. You want your life to have an impact.

You want your career to have an impact. Wherever you are in the world, my friend, God has you there for a specific reason. Allow Him to use you for maximum effect.

What does impact look like? It means being able to achieve things that seem to be impossible, whether it be in a sales career, a management career, whatever the career may be that God helps you to land in, He's going to enable you to do things that seem to be impossible. I can give you testimony after testimony of what God's done in my career and in my life, but for you, my friends, it's uniquely yours. Just like the caterpillar, I am new through the process that God is taking you through. It is uniquely yours to equip you, to engage people as you go, and to have an impact.

You want your life and career to have an impact, and that's what God wants for you, my friends. Therefore, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. 

You are not. When you're a Christ, you are free. Therefore, there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8.1. So now, my friends, God wants you to be armed with this.

Continue to think about it. Meditate on it until it becomes ingrained in your spirit, your soul, and your body. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of the world.

Don't let the world's way of doing things make you try to follow that. God has a unique plan and a pathway for you to follow. So do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

You have the mind of Christ. Begin to use it and to see yourself and to think the way God thinks about you. Father, I love you, and I thank you.

Oh, Lord, please, I know I don't have to beg you, Father God, because you love every listener more than I can ever imagine, more than they can ever imagine. You are listening right now, my friends, to the voice of God speaking to you as I read his word to you. Hear what God is saying to you today. He loves you unconditionally, and he has made you a brand new creation in Christ.

Liken yourself to the caterpillar born again as a transformed, beautiful butterfly. Revel in your new you day by day, moment by moment. Embrace being the new you in both your life and your career.

In Jesus' name, amen.