| A New
Thing by Pat Nordman
| "Forget the former
things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am making a new thing!" Isaiah 43:18,19a
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he
is a new crea-tion; the old has gone, the new has come!"
2 Corinthians 5:17 |
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God tells us, "I will cover your iniquity. . .I will blot out your
transgressions. .
.Go, and sin no more." He asks us to forget the things–the sins–that we
have committed and go on with His love and mercy. We would wonder about the man who drops
a glass bottle on the sidewalk, then gets down and so carefully collects all the jagged
little pieces and then hugs them to his bosom until he bleeds. This is what we do when we
spurn God's forgiveness.
"Forgetting what lies behind" (Philippians 3:13): slanders; temptations; the
little and large faults of others; provocations that sear our sensitive nature; quarrels
that either we or they have started; and all the disagreeables of life. Let us reach
forward, as Paul tells us in the same verse, to what lies ahead and enjoy the agreeables
that God has in store for us today and tomorrow. We have such a perverted and sinful
tendency to concentrate on the bone and forget the delicious meat of life: family,
friends, coworkers with whom we can share a thought and a laugh. Let us blot out others'
transgressions and our disagreeables right now.
Every day is another chance and charge to become a new character. We have another
opportunity to change from Saul to Paul, from Jacob to Israel. Physically we do not
change, of course, but it is our motives, our principles and our habits which change.
Jesus gave us the pa-tern for our unique trans-figuration in His Sermon on the Mount and
in what He Himself was and is. His Word is His promise, "And this is what he promised
us–even eternal life" 1 John 2:25. Eternal life starts today.
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