| FOOD FOR THOUGHT - Insights (16) |
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| INSIGHTS | ||
Personal experiences which have provoked thought - and created or reinforced particular insights about our lives in God's world.
In this example, one of our church-members reflects on the difference between our worldly notion of making 'as new' and the perfect spiritual 'newness' which God offers to each one of us in our lives, both now and for ever after with Him. BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW Revelation 21 v5 | ||
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It's almost impossible to make things new; we can make things almost 'as new' but to make things 'as new' would mean going right back to the beginning and starting afresh. I grew up in the years immediately following the second World War when money wasn't plentiful and my parents made every effort to economise. I had two pairs of shoes a year - sandals for the summer and lace-ups for the winter. The sandals were bought for Whitsun and would have to last over the summer until it was time for sturdier shoes for the winter. Winter always seemed to last longer then; hence shoes had to last longer - but no-one had told the soles! There would always come a time just before Easter when holes started to appear. This was when Dad retired to the garden shed (everyone should have a shed!) where he kept the necessary tools to repair the shoes. He would appear some time later with them looking like new; not completely new but certainly having new life in them.
Dad was a cabinet-maker and worked at the local furniture factory. He would often come home with damaged doors or oddments of wood and proceed to make them into something beautiful; not new but as new.
We are entering a New Year; a new beginning, untouched, and untarnished. I always feel that with New Year's Eve there comes an invisible line when we can finally put behind us the things of the previous year and start afresh. Some things we like to remember such as new births, celebrations, the happy times. There are things, though, which we would prefer to forget; the times we have hurt those close to us with cruel words; the times we have hardened our hearts against those in need; the times we have hurt God. God forgives and forgets all those things. When we know Jesus, every day is New Year's Day! This special day gives us the opportunity to remember with praise and thanksgiving the things with which God has blessed us, and to reflect on the way we have known His presence through all our experiences during the past year. It is also a time to look forward with God over the coming year, trusting Him for guidance in our plans and the things we would like to accomplish. In all of this we must remember that this new year, 2008, is in God's hands. We may be disappointed when plans have to be changed but, if we believe that God is in control, then we will know it is for the best and that what God has in mind will be even better.
Dorothy R
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This is what God in Jesus does for us. He takes our tattered lives with all our faults and breathes new life into them. He makes something beautiful. The difference between my Dad and my Heavenly Father is that God is able to start from afresh with what we are and make us into something completely new. Through His Spirit living in us He is able to make a new life out of the remnants of the old. Not a life 'as new' but completely 'new'. He is able to wipe away our mistakes of the past and create in us a new soul. When God makes all things new, He makes us spiritually and morally new.