Do you want a new life ... or for someone else? - 1 August 2022
Fanie Richter
“I am making everything new!” Revelation 21:5, NIV
“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Isaiah 1:18, NIV
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God ...” 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, NIV
Have you tried everything to get a kick out of life, and then felt, “So what!?” Here I sit again, the four walls around me and the silence are the same as usual. I feel as lonely and empty as before the party. And I am missing out on LIFE ...
Or do you think of someone for whom you have “no hope”? In my youth, I knew André (pseudonym) – about 20 years old and “self-made” on the face of it, proud of his reckless life. I was just a friend to him and sometimes remembered him in my prayers.
About two years after changing jobs and moving, I ran into him at Johannesburg station one day – neatly dressed and friendly when he greeted me. And when he heard that I was going to study theology the following year, he grabbed my hand with a “Praise the LORD!” He then told me how the Lord had begun to renew his life after running into a group of Christians on his way somewhere. Amazing! The last thing I heard about him was that he lives for the Lord heart and soul.
God can and wants to do the same for you or the person you are thinking of, as he did for André – and also for me. Be still and pour out your heart before him.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, please come and meet me (or the other person) and renew us, according to your will, so that we can experience your counsel, peace and love – according to your will and purpose with us. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen