“Behold I am making all things new.” – Revelation 21:5
This is the promise that is to come and the promise that stands today.
God is making everything new – both today and in the days to come.
This promise lies in the book of Revelation, and yet in the very book written by the prophet Isaiah, he points to this promise to come {Is. 43:19, Is. 65:17}.
This is our final week of Lent. Week six. It’s been quite a journey for me. God has worked more in these past six weeks of my life than possibly ever before. He has opened my eyes to so much of His truth, empowering me with His love, transforming me from the inside out. I have felt Him truly reach out, reach down, take hold of my life, and begin to truly make all things new.
This week is Holy Week. Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and this coming Sunday will be Easter. In between we’ve got Good Friday and three days of waiting for our resurrection celebration.
resurrection
While we may wait to join our family, friends and communities to celebrate Easter Sunday, we need not wait another day to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Have you been waiting to receive – to truly receive, to take hold of, and to live out – this gift of the resurrection?
Christ has come. He has defeated death. He has risen and ascended into Heaven to be seated at the right hand of His Father, our Father. And oh what a glorious promise that is for us!
This promise is one we can take hold of, to clench tightly to, one that will help carry us through our trials, loneliness, and wilderness seasons of loss, sadness, grieving, and sorrow.
New life. That’s what this week is all about.
rebirth
A caterpillar must go into a dark “cave” of the cocoon in order to emerge as a butterfly.
Jesus Christ was buried in an actual cave before He emerged to new life.
And often it is the very “caves” or “wilderness” experiences that are the catalyst to brings us to new life.
Colossians 3 tells us we are “taking off the old self with its practices and putting on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 says that the old has gone and the new has come.
No matter how far down a dark path we have traveled, no matter how many mistakes we have made, people we have hurt, and no matter how many others have wronged us, “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” {2 Cor 5:17a}.
The blood of Jesus has washed away every impurity from our lives, has made us clean, like wool {Psalm 51:7, Isaiah 1:16-18, John 1:29}.
Psalm 103:12 tells us that “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our trangressions from us.”
Behold, He is making all things new. Can you feel it?
What places in your life can you see the Father reaching out to restore, to make new, to bring new life from dirt and ashes? {Isaiah 61:3}
redemption
While we were still sinners, still steeped in sin and self and shame, God reached out and gifted us the opportunity for new life through the selfless sacrifice of His only Son.
He offered up His beloved Son that He may call us His beloved.
This, my friends, is a redemption story. This, my friends, is the Redemption Story!
And because of it, we are all living, breathing, walking redemption stories.
Through singleness, through heartbreak and through the gift of my wonderful godly husband, I experienced a redemption story through the love story of my life.
And through fourteen years of chronic pain, associated heartache, and now through the very healing work He is doing in my soul and body, I see God writing a whole new redemption story in my life.
These are my redemption stories.
What is your redemption story?
God did not write an antiquated story between the two covers of your Bible. God’s Word is as alive and active now as it ever was.
Jesus is not as some ancient character in a dusty old storybook; He is alive and active, friend to the sinner, constant companion to all who receive Him, and Redeemer who takes all that has been broken and makes it whole.
Behold, He is making all things new.
My prayer is that the truth of these lyrics would wash over us, would fill our minds, and be the anthem of our souls this week:
This is the start
This is your heart
This is the day you were born.
This is the sun
These are your lungs
This is the day you were born.And I am always, always, always yours.
And I am always, always, always yours.These are the scars
Deep in your heart
This is the place you were born.
And this is the hole
Where most of your soul
Comes ripping out from the places you’ve been torn.And it is always, always, always yours.
I am always, I’m always, I’m always yours.Hallelujah, I’m caving in
Hallelujah, I’m in love again
Hallelujah, I’m a wretched man
Hallelujah, every breath is a second chance.And it is always, always, always yours.
Yeah, I am always, I’m always, always yours.– Switchfoot, Always
Every breath is a second chance… to receive this gift of rebirth and redemption made possible through the resurrection of the Savior who has come as a light in the darkness of this world, Jesus Christ.
He is always yours.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39
Receive this gift today. Like truly receive it. With all your heart, mind, body, soul and spirit.
