Restoration part 3
When I started this Rant series, the verse I kind of had in mind was Joel 2:25, "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you." But more specifically, the idea of God restoring our wasted years. Because, I know at 32 I'm not OLD (my pastor always says you don't even know what tired is until you hit 40), but I still feel like there was a lot of time spent on a lot of things that didn't amount to much. "Call my youth misspent" as the old movie quote goes. So I have always linked Joel 2:25 with Job 33:24-25, "Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth." Which, of course, is exactly what happened on the cross. Jesus referred to Himself as the ransom in Matthew 20:28, and 1 Timothy 2:6 says, "Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." I like it even better in the NLT, "He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time." Freedom. Even from the mistakes of our past. From the years that the locust has eaten. From all the time we may have wasted. (And just to say, I don't think it is ALL wasted time. Because if you're doing something you enjoy, it's not really a waste. There are lots of different ways to be productive. I'm simply talking about the things that didn't work out, like that. But even then... if you learn from your mistakes they were worth making. A lot of the time you have to do something wrong before you can do it right. That's called learning and growing.) Freedom. Which goes two ways: Freedom FROM the bondage of sin and death. And freedom TO live and love. Yesterday we saw that the cross was God reconciling us back to Himself. Bringing us back to our first love. Which is... love. HIS love. Today I want to focus on what I truly believe is one of the effects of love: Eternal youth. Eternal life, but not in the sense of getting older and older and things falling apart all the time. But being BORN AGAIN. Getting a fresh start. God allows U-turns. And in fact, I think He encourages them. He doesn't want us to suffer. What father would? He wants us to flourish. He wanted the best for us, so He gave the best TO us. He gave us His only begotten Son so that we might know ourselves AS His beloved Son(s) in whom He is well pleased. So that WE might be restored. And so that WE might restore all of creation. Creation is groaning for the manifestation of the Son(s) of God. Jesus brought heaven to earth. He restored creation back to what it was supposed to be through the cross. Through the Messianic rebirth of the world. And now that we know and believe that the restoration HAS taken place... we can stop waiting for it to happen. We can stop suffering with the effects of age (and all of the stuff that came with those years), and we can begin to walk in newness of life. We can begin to enjoy the gift that we've been given. Eternal life. Knowing the one true God and the One whom He sent. Knowing God and knowing ourselves. Our TRUE selves. Because WE have been restored!