Something New

I love my truck. She is almost two years old now, but it is the first truck I've had the opportunity to buy ‘new’. It seemed to me at the time that I had waited a long time in my life to finally be able to do so. There is nothing wrong with it and I have managed to keep the mileage down, only going over the twenty-thousand mile mark on the odometer just last week. I have managed to keep the oil changed on-schedule and even had the tire rotation performed at the correct interval. Those two steps are also new to me as I have had a tendency to let those kinds of things slide on other vehicles I have owned in the past.

This morning on the way to work I reminded myself that it is time for another oil change and there are also a few routine service items I need to have checked. I’ve also started to notice a few rattles and squeaks that did not seem to be there before. Maybe it is just my imagination and the solution I should take is to turn up the volume on the radio. I know it is inevitable with a truck or any other vehicle for the matter – they are simply going to degrade due to both mileage and age.

There is an added emphasis in the news media and politics these days on global warming or ‘climate change’, and whether fact or fiction it is obvious if you take a drive across this nation of ours that we are ruining our environment. If not with pollution or carbon emissions, then we are doing so by cutting down the forests and building quick stops and Wal-Marts all over the place. In my own hometown, areas that once were fields and pastures have now become subdivisions and trailer parks. And it appears to get worse with each passing day that goes by.

What do you do when your truck gets old or your house becomes dilapidated with age? You replace it with a new one, if you can afford to do so. If not then you patch or exchange parts and pieces a little bit at a time. But in all cases you simply try to maintain what you have in hopes that one day you will be provided with an opportunity to get something new. I know because I have been there, and I have also learned that you can only ‘maintain’ something for so long.

The things on earth that we purchase or trade for are always going to be temporary in nature. In fact, the earth itself will not last forever and we are promised this in the Bible. Jesus told John in Revelations 21: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.” How is He going to do this? How can Jesus Christ provide a new heaven and a new earth? He answers that question within the same chapter: “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” Jesus is the original creator, and He has been in the business of creation since the beginning of time.

There will be no blighted areas in critical need of repair or areas that were once better at some other point in time. He is not going to ‘fix’ or ‘repair’ the existing earth along with what we have ruined through our own selfish and sinful natures. He is going to make it all ‘new’. Notice, too, that he tells John to write it down because His Word is ‘true and faithful.’ It is enough for me and I get excited just thinking about it!

One other note this morning is that it is not just the earth and nature that Jesus can make new. Those things are all going to happen in the future just as He has promised. But you don’t have to wait until then for something new to be created. He promises us that if we will just accept his offer of salvation by grace through our faith in Him, He will make us into a new creature right now. No, we won’t be younger or better looking, but we will be able to look at things in a whole new light and will also be able to comprehend what it means to live abundantly within the Kingdom of God.

That’s a good deal, and you won’t get a better offer from your local car salesman.