The MTMV Time Out Devotional Reading: Made New

When you think of the New Orleans Pelicans what comes to mind? Do you think of Chris Paul putting the Big Easy team on the map? Maybe it’s the years the NBA owned the team. It

could be AD (Anthony Davis) developing into a star in the 20 teens and the twin towers when he & Boggie joined forces. Maybe it’s Zion & BI. Something most NBA fans don’t think of, are the electrifying teams they had in the 90’s with players like Alonzo Mourning, Muggsy Bogues, Kendall Gill, Glen Rice and Grand Ma Ma himself, Larry Johnson.

That’s right the team now known as the Pelicans started off as the Hornets when they relocated in 2002. Now they've modified the colors to reflect their new city, but they still carried the history of the NC expansion team of 1988. That is until 2013 when the team officially changed its name and allowed the history pre-2002 to revert to Charlotte's franchise who changed their name from the Bobcats to the Hornets.

The Current New Orleans Pelicans were first known as the New Orleans Hornets when the team first moved from Charlotte to New Orleans in 2002.

The league recognized the restructuring as an expansion team awarded to New Orleans and the Hornets ceasing operations from 2002-2004 when, as promised by the NBA, a team was returned to Charlotte in the Bobcats, who played under that moniker with the same colors as their predecessors for a little over a decade.

The change in name for the New Orleans Pelicans brought with it, a change in mascot, colors, identity and history. This Louisiana team is named after its state's bird. The team is owned by people with roots in the city, an ownership group that brought a championship and dignity to the once maligned Saints. The Pelicans were made new.

You are reading this at least a day after one of the most widely celebrated holidays not only in the US but in the western world, Christmas.

For some of us, the newness hasn’t worn off on the gifts we received. We may even still be eating holiday leftovers. However, this is a new day, and the last Sunday of the year.

We have experienced many changes in 2021. A new President, new, more deadly Covid-19 strains, and loved ones gained and lost. You may live in a different home, city or state than you did in 2020. Even your relationships and or relationship status could be different.

Frankly, we should be changed, because if we are not progressing, we are regressing.

Paul encouraged the Church in Colossae to put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him (God) who created him (the new man)."

• Renewed in knowledge. to renew by moving from one stage to a higher (more developed); make qualitatively new. Changing the way, you think about one thing can make a major impact on your life.

• God ever-transforming the believer – by renewing "the new man"

Just like with the Pelicans when we put off the old man, the history with it is gone as well. Putting on Christ's jersey, the new man makes us a new creation with a new history and identity.

How does he make us new? His blood washes us clean and he changes our minds in knowledge, which is firsthand, experiential, it is the precise and correct knowledge of Him.

When our minds are transformed, we start looking like Him (God). Kind of like the figures in Madame Tussaud’s museum. We reflect his likeness in the world by living according to his standards and ways. Our Godly image is in stark contrast to the ways of the world, because Christ lived like no man before or after him.

So, here’s the play: In Christ all things are made new, so live like it by putting off the old man and putting on the new. Change your mind and the rest will follow.

- This article was written by Tha Voyze.