All Things New

In last week's posting I made a mistake--not a huge mistake--but a mistake, nevertheless. I could tell you that last weekend my computer was having ISP problems, so I didn't get my post up on Friday night as is my goal. By the time my sons helped me get the problem resolved, it was late on Christmas eve and I really wanted to have last week's post up before Christmas. So I got in a hurry and made a mistake. An explanation, but not an excuse.

If you'll re-read last week's post you'll notice (as one of my alert readers did--thanks, Jim!) that I referred to the Mary's pregnancy as the Immaculate Conception. Major goof! For those of you who don't know the Immaculate Conception actually refers to the birth of Mary.

My point this week is not to dwell on the subtle points of the Immaculate Conception. Rather, my point is simply this--in case you haven't figured this out yet, humans make mistakes. Some of us occasionally get away with relatively minor ones (last week's posting, for example), while other mistakes we make have major long-term consequences.

The fantastic thing about grace is that God gives us a chance to start over. Notice what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. All this is from God, who...gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them."

Isn't that great?! When we are in Christ, God doesn't count our sins against us! I don't know about you, but as I reflect on 2005, God could count plenty against me. I won't bore you by cataloging all the mistakes and blunders of this past year, but trust me, there were plenty. And as the minutes count down on 2005, I'm looking forward to a new year, with new opportunities, new possibilities, and new directions in my life.

There are a lot of reasons why I'm looking forward to turning the calendar to 2006, but the biggest reason is the opportunity to experience a fresh start with God because of His grace. Join me in experiencing all things new in 2006, won't you?