New Creation
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
In 2007, a Romanian man, Gheorghe Stirbu, approached the authorities to have his ID card reissued because the old one had expired.
The attending officer said he could not issue new papers because the office had a death certificate showing that Stirbu himself had ‘expired’ on March 3, 1999, from breathing difficulties, and had been buried the same month.
“When I saw it I couldn’t believe it,” Stirbu said. “How can someone who is fully alive be declared dead?”
Stirbu said he was not even ill at the time, nor does the death certificate appear to be a case of mistaken identity.
Bungling civil servants had mixed him up with another man but although Stirbu pointed out what they had done they refused to acknowledge their mistake until Stirbu won a 12-month legal claim to be declared alive and get his ID card renewed!
Only Jesus Christ can change dead lives into new creations!
Praise Him that in His hands we have become new creatures and our lives will bring Him glory.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – Galatians 2:20