Excitement of a New Beginning

Today is the first day of a new academic year. This is my Final Year. The day when I entered USM Engineering Campus was like yesterday. I was thoroughly excited. The campus is alive again, after about two and a half months of dead silence. I love it!

Meeting people is the most exciting part. They all have different stories to tell. Their holiday trips, part time job, family stories, industrial training, 24-hour sleep, and etc., is simply exhilarating. I believe fresh beginnings empower people, while at the same time, it may bring new fears for the unknown future.

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The salvation of Christ brings a new beginning for everyone who receives it.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 

2 Corinthians 5:17

A new beginning is exciting. Even as we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, it mark a new beginning for all of us. We leave behind our terrible past, and venture into a new future. It marks the beginning of a new life with a loving Father who owns us as sons, leaving behind the old, ugly and lonely life.

When we are born again through Christ, it does not mean that we do not have to change. Christ did not die for us so that we don't have to change. He died so that change may be possible for us. He died so that we may possess the freedom and power to do what we want to do, or to refuse what we do not want to do.

Paul illustrated in his letter to the Romans:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 

Romans 7:18-20

As a man of flesh, we are bounded and chained by sin, by our necks. Even as we struggle between good and evil, right and wrong, we are forced to sin, by our sinful nature. We cannot help ourselves, because we were helpless and powerless against sin.

When we are born against through Christ, God replaced our dead spirits, with His Spirit, which is incorruptible (1 Peter 1:23). Through His Spirit, we are given knowledge of the Law, which is spiritual. Through His Spirit, we are also given strength to say "No!" to sin, for we are set free.

A new beginning is refreshing. It brings hope, and it gives strength. It gives us a chance to start a new, to right what was wrong and to be what we always wanted to be. Therefore, as believers of Christ, let us be ever ready to be transformed into Christ, so that we may bring hope and new beginnings to many others who desperately need them!