This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
When I was child I couldn’t wait for the start of a new school year! We would spend time in the weeks before school started buying new sneakers to replace the old summer-worn ones, and new jeans to fit our ever lengthening legs. But as nice as all the new clothes were, there was one thing I couldn’t wait for! My mom would always get us brand new boxes of crayons! Oh, how I loved new crayons! I loved the smell as I would open the box and I loved the sight of all the unbroken, perfectly formed crayons all lined up in a row without a torn wrapper among them. Even the big box of 64 with the built in sharpener couldn’t compare to a brand new box. It signaled a fresh start to hours of coloring and creating. I couldn’t wait to get that new box! Even today, there is something about a new box of crayons that I just love.
Today’s verse makes me think of a brand new box of crayons! When we accept Christ as our Savior, He gets rid of all the broken pieces. There are no more torn wrappers that have been peeled back to try to reveal something fresh in us. No sharpener needed in order to make something beautiful. We simply are made new; perfectly prepared to create and serve God. The old is gone! A fresh start! We can get stuck on where we have been and what we have done in the past – and it can keep us from living the new life that God has given us. Embrace that today and really live as if you have been made new.
