All Things New

Fallen humanity resembles a broken and dilapidated old house with faded paint on cracked and peeling walls. The windows are broken and the foundation have shifted. Beneath this wasted wreck of a home is a volcano ready to explode. The need is great. The soul needs transformation.

This is, of course, the business of God—to make all things new. He must do this, because things are not as they should be. What should be straight is crooked. What should be upright is bent. What should glorify God instead disgraces His name. 

This is the human condition. This is how we treat the God who calls us His people. This is the condition of our house.

We had an old covenant and broke it, so He promised us a “new covenant” (Jer. 31:31). This covenant Jesus confirmed when he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Lk. 22:20). “For this reason,” Hebrews tells us, “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 9:15). He is the mediator of a new covenant so wonderful that it will lead to a “new heavens and a new earth” (Is. 65:17).

What a majestic a picture scripture paints for us. How shabby our current state seems in light of this beauty. He has not come to simply renovate the old house; he has come to transform it. It will be the same house, but it will be a glorious house, one that does not deteriorate, and one that does not suffer shame. 

God does not simply offer a new year—He offers a new life.

He does not offer a new look—He offers a new us. 

This is exactly what Paul tells us. He wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (2Cor. 5:17)! In Galatians we learn that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation” (Gal. 6:15). What is this new creation, in truth, only God knows for sure. What we do know is that “we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2Cor. 3:18).

Some people long for the New Year. They long for a new opportunity, a chance to start over. Our Lord offers the ultimate fresh start—a new creation. 

To encounter the living God is to be changed. When the Spirit of the Living God indwells us, we are changed, irrevocably changed. He has made us so new, and the change has been so dramatic that “the former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind” (Is. 65:17).

In this New Year we must listen carefully for God’s voice. We must listen as the Lord counsels us through the words of Scripture. As we listen we must put aside worry. We must put aside fear. He has removed our old self and made us new. 

There! Listen as He says to us, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Is 43:19). 

Out of the wasteland of our lives He is making a new thing—He is making us new.