Quotes about Newness

We aren't condemning good works. People first have to be made ready to do good works by being born anew. Only

Paul believed, in fact, that Jesus had gone through death and out the other side. Jesus had gone into a new mode of physicality, for which there was no precedent and of which there was, as yet, no other example.

Jesus is often seen as someone who can "teach" you to play the piano, so that you can perform Mozart and Beethoven. But Jesus was more like someone who had just invented an entirely new musical instrument, had written some stunning music for it, and was now "teaching" people to play the new music on the new instrument. Jesus was announcing that a whole new world was being born and he was "teaching" people how to live within that whole new world.

This was something new. They recognized the Jesus followers as a strange new presence in their midst, neither a "religion" nor a "political power," but a whole new kind of life, a new way of being human.

the radically new thing God did was nevertheless the thing he'd always promised

Follow me, Jesus said to the first disciples; because in him the living God was doing a new thing, and the list of 'wonderful news' is part of his invitation, part of his summons, part of his way of saying that God is at work in a fresh way and the this is what it looks like. Jesus is beginning a new era for God's people and God's world.

Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).

Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been.

You can't buy wisdom. You can't get it by hard work or lots of experience. No, wisdom is the result of rescue and relationship. To be wise, you first need to be rescued from you. You need to be given a new heart, one that is needy, humble, seeking, and ready to get from above what you can't find on this earth. And then you need to be brought into a relationship with the One who is wisdom.

Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy.

Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.

Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.