I have always loved the idea of starting fresh, shedding old habits or mindsets that no longer serve well.

I remember the first time I truly felt like I was walking into a new identity. It wasn’t something I could see right away, but as I look back, I can see that was a turning point in my life. I had come to faith in Jesus, but the real transformation didn’t come from that—it came from the Holy Spirit’s work in me to let go of the old and walk in the new.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that anyone who is in Christ becomes a new creation. The old self—the shame, the regrets, the wounds—are gone. We often try to hold on to old identities, old mistakes, or old labels that others have put on us. But the truth is that when we are in Christ, we have a new identity. We are not defined by our past. We are not what we did before. We are who the Lord says we are now.

It can be hard to accept this truth, especially when we are so used to carrying the weight of our past. But the good news of Jesus calls us to walk in the freedom of our new identity. And today we can take that step. We can embrace the fact that the old is gone, and the new has come!