¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature altogether; the old has passed away.
(2 Cor 5:17)

I’ve read this verse tonnes of times, I’ve heard it preached on numerous occasions, but it wasn’t until a few months ago on a trip to North Africa that this verse jumped out of the Bible and into my life.

Over the next 4 weeks I want you to join me in what I call: The New Creation Challenge and commit to saying, ‘I am a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come’ every morning for 30-days.

Why, you may ask?

It was another warm and dry day in Africa. I was told by my contacts to be ready at 7:00am sharp, under strict orders not to speak to anyone in the hotel lobby and above all not to go with anyone I did not know. The lobby of this hotel would more than likely consist of a mixture of staff, guests, secret police and possible terrorists. You see, foreigners don’t often come to this town and when they do word spreads very quickly and the risk of kidnapping increases greatly. It is a staunchly Islamic area and 24-hours before I arrived not too far from the hotel a roadside bombing occurred.

This is life in North Africa.

As 7:00am approached I sat as inconspicuously as possible and waited for a familiar face to appear and as if on cue at 7:00am my guide arrives to take me out for the day, today is a Friday (the first day of the weekend) in Africa and I am off to meet a group of secret believers and experience what church looks like to them.

The drive seems to take all these twists and turns, it feels as though we’re continuously doubling back on ourselves and I am 99% sure that we have seen the shops we’re passing at least once before on this trip. Anyway, around 30mins later we’re driving down yet another crowded inner city street when my guide says, “we are here”.

We find a park and walk a short distance through a highly congested part of the city. We arrive at a totally inconspicuous blue door amongst what feels like a sea of other blue doors. The guide knocks on the door but it doesn’t feel like a normal knock for some reason, its code-like, its got a pattern to it – a few seconds later the door opens ever so slightly and a face looks at me watchfully then smiles and invites us in. We walk through a series of corridors and into a room with about 40 people: women, men, children. These are the secret believers.

Over the next 2-hours we have a great church service, I am lucky enough to have someone who can translate the message for me and the Pastor speaks on becoming a new creation. As he walks around the room he emphasises the notion that when you give your life to God you become a new person, the old has gone the new has come. The Pastor walks past a congregational member and says, ‘this man smoked for 20yrs but when he gave his life to God he gave it up overnight, why? Because, the old person has gone and the new person has come.’ The Pastor then goes on to say that we must never forget this and sadly he has heard stories from the west (that’s us) where people seem to forget they are a new person in Christ, the Pastor talks about how sad it must be, and, when you forget this fact you begin to chase the superficial in life and soon enough the old self has returned and mixed itself with what’s left of your new self to form this weird hybrid and sure enough your understanding on faith changes and the complacent lukewarm attitudes usually set in!

So here lies the soul reason for The New Creation Challenge... the need not to forget that in Christ we are all new creations and that every morning we should realise the old has gone, the new has come... the fact that when you truly know Christ you show it, it’s in your walk, your talk, your compassion, your love, your grace, your kindness... sound familiar? That’s right it’s the fruit of the Spirit, characteristics which should be an overwhelmingly clear part of our everyday lives!

I encourage you to join us over the next 4 weeks and check back to hear more great life-changing and inspiring stories from North Africa. We are all called to a powerful life in God.

Let’s commit to declaring we are a new creation and giving God space to renew us over the next 30 days.

If you’d like to book a speaker or find out more about the ministry of Open Doors please email us at mhb@od.orgwe’ll happily get straight back to you. Alternatively you can follow us on facebook or support our ministry by making a donation or buying a shirt. We would also love you to share this series of BLOGs with your friends and family as we want to change the spiritual temperature of Australia and see a generation switched on to the things of God.