Celebrate the New

By Travis Robertson

     We like to celebrate with friends and family when we receive something new. The most precious is, of course, a new baby. We throw baby showers, and want to hold the new beautiful bundle of joy. New cars also attract attention. New car smell is so appealing that it has been manufactured into a scent for old cars to make them smell new. New gizmos of every type flood the market every year. Consumers brave the cold, even camp out in front of stores to be the first to purchase the newest version of the latest product.
     We even celebrate the “New Year”. We get together and remember all about the old year, some of it with laughter and some with tears, but we celebrate the new. “Out with the old and in with the new!”
     If we are going to celebrate “new”, let us celebrate the new life that has been granted through the gracious gift of forgiveness and reconciliation and eternal life. Let us also resolve to live as light and salt so that reconciliation will spread throughout the world starting here and starting now.
     “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).

- Travis Robertson preachers for the Lake Norman Church of Christ in Huntersville, NC. He may be contacted through the congregation's website at http://lakenormancoc.org/