This morning there was just enough new snow to cover up the old. It hid every dirty about it, the scraped up bits of driveway, the dirty footprints, and sticks and twigs and things that blew around. It was just enough to hide the old and make it look new again.
It is always a blessing to see how God is at work to renew His creation. But this is not the way He works on you and me.
When God does his work to renew you and I, he doesn’t just sprinkle enough on top to make us look new. He never does just enough transformation to hide the bits of dirt that have accumulated in our lives. He doesn’t just hide the dirty footprints, the things that blow in and out of our lives.
God’s work of transformation is not just enough to hide the old and make us look new again.
God’s work of transformation is extraordinary. It is complete. It is wholesale change. It is entirely new. It is total. It is brilliant.
Acts 3 recounts Peter’s healing of the crippled beggar. It was the kind of healing that amazed those who watched. To them, it looked as if this man had made some remarkable improvement in his health. But Peter corrected them: “By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.” (Acts 3:16)
It was no on-the-surface, cover-up, just-enough-to-make-him-walk healing. This was a complete healing. This was a total transformation. This was an all-new life for a man who had never walked.
The New Year can bring with it for you a dusting of healing, a flurry of hope, or a drift of transformation… or, as for this man, it can bring with it complete transformation.
But this complete change, this total transformation, this work of God, it requires a step from you too. And it is the same step Peter called for from the onlookers that day, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.” (Acts 3:19-20).
To repent means to change direction totally. And when you do, God will wipe out your sins… completely.