All Things New
By Caron Cline
Burke County
Purchasing or receiving something new tends to stimulate the most complacent or apathetic individual. The human heart bores easily and even the most content admit that the thought of a new car, house, job, etc. tends to cause that heart to pick up its pace. Each year we anticipate the Thanksgiving season, followed immediately by the season of Advent, with all its festivities and fellowship with loved ones. As the year draws to a close, we turn our thoughts to the coming of a new year. What will the future bring? Will it be exciting or could danger be lurking ahead? Regardless of the uncertainty, we charge boldly into the future with optimism and purpose. The bottom line is: we love a new beginning.
Where does this desire originate? Could it come from our heavenly Father?
As we navigate the Scriptures, we find that God loves new things! The word ‘new’ is used approximately 150 times in the Bible. His intent is to bestow upon His children new things; new gifts! When God called Moses to return to Egypt as the deliverer of His people, Moses wondered if the people would receive him as their leader. We read these words in Exodus 3:13-14, “Then Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’. These words teach us that God is always in the present. He is in the ‘now’ and therefore, with Him, all things are new. This principle provided for the children of Israel as Moses led them through the wilderness for 40 years. Neither their clothes nor their sandals ever wore out although the desert heat and rough terrain should have taken a vicious toll upon them. Miraculously, these basic necessities retained their newness.
Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world and in a body of death. God has not chosen to repeat the wilderness miracle in our world today. Sin has taken its toll on everything within our sight and, in the natural, all that surrounds us is spiraling downward. Thankfully, as believers, we walk by faith and not by sight, standing on the promises of God of new things to come.
However, Jesus promised that if we received Him as Lord and Savior, we would have a new beginning, known as being born again. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”. These words seem to echo a similar thought from the prophet Isaiah in chapter 43, verse 18-19, ”Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
How amazing to realize that we can become new people with new hearts and new minds! The New Covenant that Jesus made with His Father by pouring out His own blood for us opened the door for these new hearts. God spoke through Jeremiah of this New Covenant and explained it in this manner: “…after those days, declares the Lord, I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be My people…for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more”. We have been made new!
Another wonderful promise from our Father was also conveyed through the prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:22-23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness”. Who doesn’t need new mercies every morning? What a wonderful promise!
Lastly, we have the greatest promise of all. In the book of the Revelation, chapter 21, we read of our future home. Every believer will someday dwell in a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness will reign. “And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’”.
As we slip into 2020, the potential for success and prosperity is equal to our potential for loss and devastation. However, in the spiritual, we are constantly being renewed and moving from glory to glory.
Walk in newness of life! The future is bright!
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Caron is a follower of Jesus Christ and a member of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Morganton, NC. She loves to teach the word of God.
Her desire is to see every believer grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.
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