Renewal

If you had asked me when I was younger what my favorite season was, the answer would have easily been summer. I loved the warm weather and the longer days. Oddly enough, this doesn’t quite hold true today. Maybe it is because where I grew up the transition of seasons was well, lacking. The only stark change came from fall to winter where the outside world went from brown to white. After having moved, I came to a place where I was able to see the slow burst of color from winter melting away. I now live in an area where there is a sweet scent in the air, and I have found that I love the renewal that is seen in the spring time.

  Maybe it is because I have now seen the beauty that is found in spring, that I have noticed more of the renewal aspect that is mentioned in Colossians 3.

 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

Colossians 3:1-11

You see, renewal means to replace something that was worn-out; broken; it is an act of restoration. Just as the plant life restores their color in the spring; we become restored when we accept Jesus Christ. We have been raised up with Christ as Colossians 3:1 states. Therefore, we do not need to look back on the dull and dreary aspects of what we were before our restoration. That part has died and we are alive in Christ.

  By accepting Christ, we are freed from our sins and are a new creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. Colossians 3 emphasizes this by stating that we are freed from our old practices and place on a new self that is being renewed by the knowledge of God. What better time to consider this process then in springtime as the earth becomes a flood of color? We are created in the image of God, and once we accept Him we are no longer as we once were.

Seek the truth and encourage one another,

Alex