Perspective can be salvation. Are they bad apples or the start of applesauce? Is it a rainy day or the perfect day for a nap? Is dinner burned or is this reason to eat out? At first glance, many things and events seem less than desirable. Closer inspection or a new perspective may reveal something else.
The last page of a book is the end or time to start a new book. The last slice of cake is the end or time for cookies. The last goodbye may be the end or reason for travel and visits. Closing HOPE is the end or the possibility for a fresh start.
As I think back over the few short years I've been on planet earth, many major life changes were endings ??or?? fresh starts. In similar circumstances, many people might think in terms of the end of life the way it has been. I have chosen to view these moments of life as fresh starts with unlimited potential.
When I met Jesus, who I once was ceased to exist. Many of the things I used to do stopped. Some of the people I spent much of my time with were left behind. But in all of these changes, I refused to see meeting Jesus as the end of a life. Instead, meeting Jesus was a beginning, a fresh start. The apostle Paul agrees:
2 Corinthians 5:14 . . . For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. {15} And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. {16} So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. {17} Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! {18} All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: {19} that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. {20} We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. {21} God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This passage can strain the brain. Allow me to offer a Les Cool paraphrase for ease of getting what Paul said:
We are what we are and we do what we do because we have been gloriously saved and set free from the power of sin by Jesus Christ. He died that we might live, and not just live the same old lives we had been living. No! Jesus died and was raised again that we might live a much better kind of life. This life Jesus provides is the abundant life God has promised.
Furthermore, we have been invited by God Himself to serve as His ambassadors of life. We are being sent into the world, our world—the world we know so well—to tell others of this better life. In a very real way, we are to reflect God to those who do not know God.
Now, my salvation experience may have been an ending of many things, but it was also a fresh start for a better life. Notice verse 17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" This is a fresh start. No reheated leftovers. No fresh paint over the rust. We have been made brand new.
My salvation experience opened doors to a new kind of life. Before, I was hollow, shallow and selfish. Now I am filled to overflowing and I have depth rooted in a relationship with God. I'm still working on that whole selfishness thing :)
One of the really cool pieces of salvation is that I'm free. God didn't turn me into a robot. I'm still me! I'm just a new and improved me. That's good news. But it's also cause for trouble. You see, I'm not too bright. I sometimes roll in the mud. I still sin.
Listen carefully: post-salvation sins DO NOT end salvation. But all sins, even little sins, mess with our heads and hearts. We feel guilty. That is a good thing. Guilt, onboard assistance, encourages necessary confession. Confession yields relationship restoring forgiveness. Ignored guilt becomes shame. Guilt tells us we have done a bad thing. Shame says we are bad. Shame damages the person. God offers a shame protection procedure:
1 John 1:8 . . . If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. {9} If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. {10} If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
John provides a simple procedure to avoid shame when we find sin in our lives.
Step #1 . . . Admit that You Sin. John wrote:
1 John 1:8 and 10 . . . If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. {10} If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
There is no advantage to denying the fact that we sin. And this complete honesty about sin has two levels: 1. General . . . "I sin." 2. Specific . . . "I sinned this sin."
Once we have acknowledged the reality of sin, general and specific, we must move on to Step #2: specific confession. Confession is acknowledging the sin, agreeing with God that the thought, word or deed is indeed a sin.
This is where the fresh start takes place. God meets our confession with forgiveness, total release. The sin is erased. And God treats us as if we had not sinned. Each confessed sin is cause for a fresh start. We start with the possibility of not sinning that sin again. You might think confession a rather small slice of daily life. But I think every fresh start is a big deal.
One other slice of life with God is the blessing of each and every new day. Some people face morning by saying, "Good God, it's morning." I prefer to face the day by saying, "Good morning, God."
And I assure you that these opposite responses are more than the distinction between a morning person and one who prefers a later start. Some dread the start of each new day and each day's problems. Life is a drudgery. I prefer the wonder of each new day and its possibilities.
I honestly get Jeremiah's words:
Lamentations 3:19 . . . I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. {20} I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. {21} Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: {22} Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. {23} They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. {24} I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." {25} The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him....
Jeremiah had been looking out over Jerusalem after its total destruction. Everything that he had held close to his heart had been completely destroyed. And yet, each new morning was cause to rejoice, and to praise and worship God.
Jeremiah was able to look beyond the rubble, beyond the pain and loss, and behold the wonder of a God who never changes. Yes! Jerusalem had been destroyed, the fruit of bad choices by a people rebelling against God. But God was still there, waiting with open arms to receive the wounded and seeking.
Well, we're not wounded, and all we own has not been destroyed. Our church is closing. And for that we are truly saddened. Jeremiah reminds us that we can know that our God is waiting with open arms to love on us.
Regardless what life brings at us, regardless how bad today might be, regardless how dark the last week has been, with each new dawn we have the blessing of a brand new, never-before-used day. God's mercy and grace, expressions of His "great love," are the never-ending source of fresh starts.
HOPE arises afresh out of the soil of a yucky day when God is embraced as the source of life. When we trust in the Lord, when we claim Him as our life, we are blessed with perspective to see beyond the loss or pain or disappointment. We are allowed to see what might now be possible.
And so, I suggest to you, that beyond the disappointment of closing HOPE and moving on without each other is a fresh start. Not a mere do over, for what we have shared together has been good. This fresh start is a God-appointment with a future that He is designing.
So, here we are, kind of like Jeremiah, beholding what was, contemplating what might be. Confused? That's okay. Scared? That's also okay. Just remember that God is in the middle of whatever happens, whatever happens next.
Actually, He is waiting for you and for me to catch up with Him. He is already there, wherever we are headed. And that is truly good news!
