I am really excited to share this message with you today. It is so timely for all of us. This particular message has been brewing inside of me for the past week. I was actually preparing a totally different message for our Spiritual Equipping Broadcast, and this one completely arrested me, and I knew this was the message for the first week of the year.

I’m taking a major risk today by telling you this. I have no idea what your beliefs are or if you adhere to a certain faith or not. But I believe God has a message for you and me today. I hope you will read this message from a position of maturity, and that you will not get your chonies in a wad. Please take what I’m about to share with you as a piece of wisdom, because I really believe this is going to touch you deeply and impact every area of your life in the new year.

This is going to be what you and I both need to hear right now. As you read this and really receive it, you will know it was clearly God who brought this message to you in order to prepare you for what I believe will be your greatest year yet.

I woke up one morning and I heard in my spirit the word “fresh”. So I looked up every instance of the word in the Bible. The first passage that stood out to me was Mark 2:21-22. It says, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results. No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”

You’ve heard that age-old saying, “Out with the old, in with the new”. But that’s just a saying. This is directly from God! There is actually a warning in this passage. It warns that you cannot take a new patch and put it on an old garment and expect for it to work. If you are trying to mend an old garment, you must use a piece of shrunken cloth. Otherwise, it will result in an even greater tear. Interesting, isn’t it?

I won’t go into great detail on wine and wineskins, but what you have to know is this: They used to use animal skins to keep their wine. (Today we prefer bottles or barrels, but they used animal skins filled with wine.) But they didn’t put new wine into old wineskins, because that would cause the skins to burst. They put new wine into fresh wineskins.

This is a very clear message that you and I need to grasp.

God is bringing something new. He is bringing NEW into your life in 2013. But what we cannot do is we cannot carry the old with us. We cannot embrace the new if we are carrying the old with us. We cannot mix the new and fresh things with the old and worn out things. He wants you to have new wineskins.

We cannot come into the new things with old mindsets and old ways & habits. We must embrace it with new mindsets and new ways.

2 Corinthians 5:17 is the next passage, and it says this: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Did you catch that? If you are in Christ, you are a new creature!

What does it mean to be in Christ? If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus, the only begotten son of God, died on the cross and rose from the dead, ascended to the Father, that He is alive and sitting at the right hand of the Father right now, then you are in Christ.

So if you are in Christ, then you are a new creature! It doesn’t say, “You might be a new creature,” or “Someday you may become a new creature,” or “You should be a new creature.” No, it says you are a new creature! Not someday…NOW! (And NOT the kind of creature Mary pictures every time I say the word “creature”…a green thing with 6 eyes and tentacles… But a new creature in Christ!)

It says the old things have passed away. What are the old things? Old doubts, old fears, past mistakes, past pain, past resentment and bitterness towards your spouse or your kids, the anger you had towards somebody you work or live with, the anger from your childhood, the business mistakes, the financial mistakes. The old things have passed away!

It goes on to say, “Behold, new things have come.” Not new things are coming; not new things will come in the future. New things have come! It’s already here!

I really love this passage, and here’s why: I’ve encountered people in my work who are carrying self-hate. It’s almost as though they are beating themselves over the head with a baseball bat, making themselves pay for the mistakes they’ve made. And whenever I encounter someone like this, I will have them repeat this passage over and over again. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

I have to tell you a story real quick. It was January 2010 in Denver, Colorado. We had a sold-out crowd for First Steps to Success. There was a client there who I just love. She had something happen to her back and she was in a wheelchair. She was in pain and so drugged up, she didn’t even look like the same person. She desperately wanted to be healed. Her husband and daughter told her, “You’ve got to go to First Steps. I know the Lord is going to heal you there.” And she did.

So there it was, Saturday night at our Spiritual Equipping Live in the Marketplace. The Lord had told me He was going to heal her, so I brought her up to the stage. I had her repeat some things after me for a little while, and then here’s what came out of her mouth: “I know I’m paying for my sins right now.” I’m telling you, I got mad as a hornet. Because there’s only ONE who can pay for our sins, and that isn’t you or me. I knew that was the evil one who was speaking out of her mouth and that she was carrying a spirit of condemnation. She was holding the bat, beating herself up for the mistakes she had made.

I looked at her and I said, Renae, you say this after me: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ – and I am in Christ – then he is a new creature – so I am a new creature! The old things passed away; behold, new things have come!”

Another one I had her repeating was Romans 8:1, which says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Renae got healed that night. She was standing on the stage for 45 minutes before she realized that she was standing on her own, with no pain!

The old things had passed away – the wheelchair, the pain, the mindset of “I’m paying for my sin” and “I deserve this” had passed away. The new things had come for Renae.

My friend, these 2 passages may be something you want to print out and keep in front of you as you head into 2013.

You cannot come into 2013 with your old ways of thinking. It’s old mindsets that keep us stuck. It’s the old mindsets that we carry with us that trip us up, hold us back, and keep us in a rut. The old ways you think about money, your job, your business, your spouse, your family, yourself. The old ways you look at your future have passed away! The new things have come!

This is your chance for a clean slate, a new beginning, a fresh start. So embrace it!

In my next post, I am going to share with you the rest of the message God has given me to begin this brand new year with a fresh new start. Together, we are going to discover the old mindsets and old ways that we have carried with us through the years, and we are going to get a glimpse of what God has in store for us in 2013.

I can’t wait to watch as you run with this. I truly believe this will set you up for outrageous success in the coming year.

Be sure to watch for my next post, where I will share the rest of this powerful message. In the meantime, if this has impacted you in any way, I would love to hear about it. What mindsets will you leave behind this year? What fresh new beginnings do you believe are in store for you in 2013? What insights did you gain today? Please scroll to the bottom of this page and let me know – I will be reading your responses personally, because I love hearing about your success!

Also, if you would like to see your friends and family experience their best year ever as well, go ahead and just send this link to them. You never know who needs this message right now. So just as you have freely received this today, please freely share it! And until next time, God bless!

In great faith,