New DNA in Jesus

Thanks for joining us for today's devotional reading from Our Daily Bread. I'm Kirsten Holmberg and I titled our encouragement, New DNA in Jesus. Chris had his blood retested four years after his life-saving bone marrow transplant. The donor's marrow had provided what was needed to cure him but had left a surprise. The DNA in Chris's blood was that of his donor, not his own.

It makes sense really. The goal of the procedure was to replace the weakened blood with a donor's healthy blood. Yet even swabs of Chris's cheeks, lips and tongue showed the donor's DNA. In some ways, he'd become someone else, though he retained his own memories, outward appearance and some of his original DNA. Chris's experience bears a striking resemblance to what happens in the life of a person who receives salvation in Jesus. At the point of our spiritual transformation, when we trust in Jesus, we become a new creation. Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus encouraged them to reveal that inward transformation, to put off their old self with its way of living and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, to be set apart for Christ.

We don't need DNA swabs or blood tests to show that the transforming power of Jesus is alive in us. That inward reality should be evident in the way we engage with the world around us, revealing how we are kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave us. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17-24. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for making us new and giving us a new life in you. Please help us to put off our old ways and put on your likeness. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. My name is Kirsten Holmberg, and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.