Untangled, Not Replaced — Grace That Restores Responsibility

 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

— 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)

I was talking recently with a client whose son, a recovered addict, had been criticising his father for not “changing.” The son was trying hard to be a different person, believing that following Christ meant leaving the old version of himself behind completely. My client and I spoke about that, and I shared something that God has been showing me for a while, the difference between being tangled and untangled.

The truth is, I am the same person I was before Christ, but my life has been untangled in relationship with Him. The thread is the same, but the knots are being loosened by His patient, loving hands.

When Paul wrote that we are “a new creation,” he didn’t mean that God replaces us with a better model. He meant that our old state of separation, our guilt, alienation, and self-reliance, passes away, and our life is now reconnected to its source. We are the same person, but now we live in Christ instead of apart from Him.

So often, though, people hear new creation as new identity in the sense of new person, and they start striving to become someone else entirely. They try to erase their past and sometimes even reject who they’ve been. It sounds holy but ends up producing something false, a self that’s disowned rather than redeemed.

And here’s where another danger creeps in: when we believe that being renewed means the old self is gone, we may also stop taking responsibility for what that old self did. We can end up using grace as a kind of amnesty for reflection, avoiding our own story rather than letting Christ redeem it.

But forgiveness doesn’t erase accountability. It removes the shame that stops us facing it. Christ’s untangling doesn’t happen to us while we sit still; it happens with us as we begin to face the knots He puts His hand on. His grace removes fear, not responsibility.

My client saw this clearly as we talked. His son’s drive to be different was understandable, but the Father’s heart is for us to be restored. When we try to become someone new, we may avoid the work of reconciliation and confession that healing requires. But when we let the same thread be untangled, we honour both grace and truth, we face what’s ours to face and trust God to do what only He can.

In reality, it’s never about becoming a different person; it’s about becoming a redeemed version of the same person, the one God always intended us to be before sin, shame, and fear knotted us up.

Without grace, responsibility becomes crushing.

Without responsibility, grace becomes cheap.

But in Christ, the two meet perfectly, grace makes responsibility possible, and responsibility makes grace visible.

Lord Jesus, thank You that You never throw away the old thread. Thank You for Your patient untangling and for the courage to face what needs facing, knowing that we do not face it alone. Amen.