Repaired or New?

       It was December of 1994 and we came home to find the back door broken in.  We had been robbed.  Thieves had taken all of the electronics we owned and left some damage in the house.  We found out then how ‘good’ our insurance company was, as they said we’d have to wait (for 3 months!) to see if our stuff was found before they would replace it, or we could take a chance on replacing it knowing they wouldn’t have to give us the money if they found our goods.

       Well, the police caught the robbers, minors, and in their possession was our VCR.  It never did run the same after it was returned, yet we were forced to keep it because they wouldn’t replace what was found.  Three times we had to send it away for repairs.  Three times they paid for those repairs, but they still wouldn’t replace it.  Eventually we had to buy a new VCR.

        I tried to ‘fix’ myself for years, struggling with habits, problems and sins.  It never seemed to work because I was living in the flesh of the old nature, walking in the world in darkness. (Eph. 2:1-3) After I was saved, it wasn’t much better when I tried to change myself by my own efforts as opposed to asking God for help or allowing Him to change me.  The main difference was that I wanted to change- at least some of the things.  God had given me a new heart*; I was a new man (Eph. 4:24) in which all things became new. (2 Cor. 5:17)  No more old parts being fixed (like the VCR) just to break down again, but brand new.

       To be repaired, or to be brand new: if you had the choice, which would you choose?  Personally, I would choose to be new.  My old heart was corrupted by the influence of the world.  My new heart desires more of God and therefore has been changing step by step into His likeness**.  To have the Lord continue to change my corrupted mind is worth more to me than all the gold and silver of the earth.  Who I was ‘back then’ is who I never want to be again.  I choose new!

How about you?

*(For Israel and us being grafted in) A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Ez. 36:26

**But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Cor. 3:18