Monthly Archives: April 2014

Brand New

“What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.” – 1 Peter 1: 3-5 (The Message). I wonder how many of us truly realize this and live it. I don’t know how many wasted hours I have spent in self-examination, trying to figure out why I do some of the things that I do, or don’t do some of the things that I should do. How many hours have I spent trying to change, to be better, to be less selfish and get out of God’s way. Why do I struggle with self at all when I have been given a brand new life?

This may not be the best analogy, but it’s the only one that comes to mind as I sit in the waiting room of a car dealership. Let’s say we have an old car that is giving us constant troubles, in and out of the repair shop, being miss diagnosed half the time and at others being fixed properly only to break down again. One day we get tired and decide to get a brand new truck, but we can’t afford it. Just then, after our umpthteen trip to the dealership, a salesman walks up to us and just gives us a brand new truck. At first we are miffed and in disbelief, that it’s too good to be true, but then we accept the reality of the situation and feel extreme gratitude. We drive the truck for a week or two still trying to get used to the idea of having a beautiful new vehicle that is worry free, but then we settle in and smile, getting used to the idea of no more repairs.

Would we then, at that point, go back to trying to figure out what went wrong with the old car, what we could do differently to keep the old car out of the shop again, feeling the sting of that old car constantly letting you down? No, of course not! That old car is in the wrecking yard now. It matters not anymore! You have a brand new truck now!

The same is true with our new life in Christ. Everything is made new! We don’t have to worry about the old life, that life is dead and gone. “So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!” – Romans 8:12-14 (The Message). And again, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” – 2 Corinthian 5:17. This new life is a wonderfully expectant and exciting one, one driven by God’s Spirit in us. It’s all a matter of shifting our focus to what is right there in front of us, a new life. Take the keys, jump in, and enjoy the ride of your life!

To Dream

Dare we to dream that God will bring revival to our area and world again? Faith is a dream that is poised toward God. Imagine great transformation of the heart, from a heart of selfishness into God’s heart. Imagine an outpouring of grace and love that fills the region and spills out to the world.

The fact that I even dream it, I believe, makes it a reality. By faith I believe it. I believe that it is something that God has already said will be. Maybe there are some of you who don’t dream such things, who don’t long for such things. Maybe you have never tasted how good it is, and so you don’t really know what I am talking about or what it looks like. But there are those of you who do, who at some level, like Neo in the Matrix, when Morpheus said to him, “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” and again, “Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?” you too feel that there is something more than what this life presents with all of its best offerings and you want to go beyond the menial things that don’t really satisfy you in the long run and discover a life of real purpose, meaning and satisfaction. It is there; I have seen it and tasted it.

The Matrix may be the stuff of fantasy, but the reality of God and His power are even greater. It’s time to seek God’s face, to set the self on the shelf and experience God’s healing and love, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. -2 Chronicles 7:14

With so much unrest in the world, now is the time for Christ’s original mission to come to fruition. It’s time to move out of the comfortable pew and into the world, the Holy Spirit beckoning us forward and giving us the power and authority to say and do all that He wills us to do. There is nothing impossible for us to accomplish through Christ who works in us.