All Things New

A London businessman was selling a property. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and thrown trash around the interior. As he showed a prospective buyer the property, the seller took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage, but the buyer wasn't interested. “Forget about the repairs,” the buyer said. “If I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.

God is that investor in II Corinthians 5 Paul remarks that ''If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creation. Old things are past away, behold all things are become new.'' Years ago I heard a saying that was hard to forget; “Nature forms us. Sin deforms us. Schools inform us. Prisons reform us. But only Christ transforms us.” The Bible tells us that in Christ we are to become new. A Christian is not just somebody who's become nice, he becomes new. He doesn't just turn over a new leaf. He receives a new life. A Christian is not like a tadpole that has become a frog. (He's gone through a series of changes, but basically he's same creature.) A Christian is more like the frog who has received the kiss of grace and become a prince. That's what we are. We are to be radically and dramatically changed.

Compared with the renovation God has in mind, our efforts to improve our own lives are as trivial as sweeping a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball. When we become God’s, the old life is over. He makes all things new. All He wants is the site and the permission to build.