Everybody loves a fresh start! It's so refreshing, so liberating to look at a brand new canvas. Everything is clean. No marks, no smudges, no history of past mistakes or reminders of days gone by clutter the page. It's clear sailing ahead for as long as you can see. Endless opportunity lies before you. Nothing inhibits or holds you back. There's a new optimism, a new energy as you approach this virgin venture.
Recently I had the fortune of winning an iPad in a drawing, for which I am extremely grateful. But I have found that my wife, my girls, my nieces like it a lot too. In fact, I'm not sure who has it the most. One of my daughters downloaded the game app, "Rush Hour." She got my wife hooked on the game who is normally repulsed by anything computer related or high tech in any way. My wife loves the game because it has this one little feature on it, "reset." She can make tons of moves, but when she gets stuck or exasperated, all she has to do is hit reset and the game clears out all the previous moves and you get start over. Since the object of the game is to clear a certain car from the traffic jam with the least number of moves, starting over relieves the pressure of past wrong moves and enhances the odds of winning the game with a low score.
Wouldn't it be great if life had a reset button? Whenever you messed something up all you to do was press reset and you could start over with no penalty. And better yet, you could screw up dozens of times, press reset every time and it would be like it was the first time you were facing your challenge. Man, I'd be using that button on a daily basis.
I got some good news for you. There is such a button. It's not like Staples' "That was easy" button. It's real! And it's not exactly a button, it's a person, Jesus Christ. And guess what, He offers it to us free.
I love the book of Romans for its clarity on this issue. No matter how good we think we are, we are never good enough to stand in the presence of God. Our hopes of Heaven went out the window with our first sin, screw up, misdeed, whatever you want to call it. Unfortunately, being good isn't good enough, because God's standard requires perfection. That means we are all up a creek without a paddle.
As Romans clearly states, as do other Bible passages, the only avenue for reconciliation with God, our only chance at heaven is through the gracious act of God. Jesus, God's Son and God Himself, paid the penalty for our sin. Now all we have to do is accept Jesus by faith and surrender our life to him. It's like hitting reset. My past is gone and a new life has begun.
Romans 6 talks about what happens after we hit the reset button. Paul describes what happens when we are baptized into Christ. He says that we die to our old life when we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior; that we're buried in baptism and raised to new life in Christ. RESET!
But it doesn't stop there. In our new life in Christ we have something that helps us stay on the right path. There's another button on the Rush Hour game that my older daughter likes. It's the "hints" button. By pressing the hints button the game will make the next move for you. After you hit reset, you can keep hitting the hints button until the puzzle is solved guaranteeing you the lowest score possible. Now you can chose to keep trying to do the puzzle on your own, but it's very likely you will make another mistake and or have to start over again.
Same is true in our spiritual journey. God has provided the "hints" button through His Word and the Holy Spirit whom He puts within you when you become a Christ Follower. We can chose to use that power or we can chose to go it alone. Paul uses the terms that we can either make ourselves a slave to sin or we can walk in the power of God. Our quality of life is determined by our own actions or choice of path.
Paul says in verses 12-13, "Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God." In other words, don't put yourself in situations where sin can take over and control you life once again. If you play with fire you will get burned. Once again Paul's words in verse 16, "Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living."
He goes onto say in verse 22, "But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life." If we have both the "reset" and "hints" buttons, why do we continue to go through life doing the same old things that got us into trouble in the first place? Doesn't seem very bright to me. That's like hitting the reset button, solving the puzzle up to the very last move and then going back to make dumb moves on our own again. But it's you choice! If you screw up again, ignoring His hints, it's not His fault that your life is a mess! Paul concludes this chapter by saying that the wages of sin lead to death, but that the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!
God, first of all I want to say thank you for the reset button of grace that you offer us through Jesus. I'd be lost forever without it. I don't deserve it, but you freely offer it at a great cost to your Son. I also want to thank you for the hints button you give through you Holy Spirit and your Word. I don't know why I ignore those so many times. I'm just thankful for the fact that no matter the mess I get myself into, your hints can get me out and help me win the game! Keep me from presenting my body as an instrument of evil and keep me focused on following you!
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