All things new!

“Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5)

The other morning Reid surprised me.  He asked me if I wanted to go look for a new range that day.  Ours is fourteen years old and the oven and burners remind me how the years of meatloaves and meatballs, soups and sauces are taking their toll on it.  Now I have been married to this man for 56 years, so I knew if I did not immediately jump on Reid’s kind offer, it could be eight, ten, or another fourteen years before he made that proposal again.  By then I could be cooking on a camp stove in the middle of the sunroom.  So, we went that afternoon and bought a new range.  Thank-you, Reid!

If you’re like me, you like new things.  A new sweater, new sofa, new book, new hairstyle, even new socks can make our day.  There’s just something about newness that excites us.  I don’t know, maybe it’s because when we get something new, we feel like we are given a second chance.  Or perhaps we like how newness appeals to our senses, like the smell of a new car’s interior.  Or maybe new things keep us from becoming bored.    

And you know what?  I think our Lord knows we like new things, because he gives us new things all the time.  He makes us into “new creations” in Him (II Corinthians 5:17).  God doesn’t simply improve the old us.  He doesn’t recycle us into someone better.  Not our God.  He creates a brand-new person in us.  A person with new thoughts, new motives, new desires.  And what about God’s mercies?  We are promised in Lamentations 3:23 that they “begin afresh every morning.”  The word mercies in the Hebrew means, “love, kindness, grace, favor.”  All that is good in God he pours out anew upon us with each sunrise.  He also “renews our strength” (Isaiah 40:31).  He refreshes our worn-out bodies, minds and emotions.  God can even “renew a right spirit” within us (Psalm 51:10).  Attitude got you down?  Our Lord can turn it around.  And lest we forget to remember that the day is coming when we will dwell eternally in a “new heaven” (Revelation 21:1), where everything will be pristine and exciting.  No boredom in heaven.

A brand new, fresh, regenerated everything is available to us in Christ.  And it is available to us right now.  All we need to do is ask.  So, if you feel like your life is in a rut.  If you’re tired of the same old same old.  If the mundane has got you down.  Remember that we serve a Savior who holds all sorts of new and exciting adventures for us each and every day.  And we won’t ever find ourselves cooking on a camp stove in the middle of the sunroom.

                                                                         Darlene