…and is painted in fresh, bright colours. Light green leaves and snow white tulips, vibrant pink dogwoods and pure purple of those trees I don’t know the name of.
The air is still cool, and the breeze makes the small, puffy clouds dance around the sun in the azul sky.
My thoughts are full of this season and the next – anticipating baseball games and the smell of barbeque and Screen on the Green and long summer nights and sangria. And I ponder new life, because it is a fact of life that seems to surround me on all sides.
New life is always a gift. People in the habit of categorically denying the existence of miracles will make an exception here. But they rarely consider its source. Even when I am in need of renewal, longing to draw on the new life that I know is mine in Christ, I don’t always turn to Him as I should. I seek comfort in the familiar, or the excitement of a fleeting change such as new clothes or a haircut.
He came to give us abundant life. We know any abundance in this world is temporary at best, so that must mean the abundance He promised is from another world. Ergo, the new life He has given us isn’t what we’re looking for or naturally what we want. Weaning ourselves from the stuff of this world is no small task; yet, it’s at the very heart of the Gospel.
Thankfully, as a friend reminded me yesterday, sanctification is God’s work despite ourselves; it cannot be accomplished on our own efforts or methods. That’s why Christians can’t and shouldn’t and mustn’t boast; it is by grace we have been saved through faith. And day by day He develops in His children a taste for true abundance, the really Real.
It never happens as we'd choose, or in the timeline we'd chose. But it is God's, so it is good.
Love not the things of this world, sons and daughters…
Love not the things of this world, image-bearers…
No comments:
Post a Comment