It’s All New

 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

—2 Corinthians 5:17

I just opened a new ream of paper for my inkjet printer. I can remember when reams of paper always came in a study paperboard box. Now the individual reams come in a heavy plastic wrap with a convenient pull tab to open one end of the wrapper—which I always somehow mess up so that instead of a nice clean opening, I create a ragged torn mess. There is something quite special about opening a new ream of paper.

I purposefully buy a 24 lb. paper instead of the usual 20 lb. paper. I like the look and feel of the slightly heavier stock.

(The poundage ratings for paper, by the way, come from a measure of the way the paper is sold to printing plants. For this type of paper, it is normally sold as 17 X 22-inch sheets. Five hundred of those sheets, or one ream, weighs in at 24 pounds.)

I particularly like the way 24 lb. paper can receive an impression on both sides without showing any bleed through from one side to the other. I also admire the thickness of the 500-sheet ream. Every edge is perfectly square, every sheet aligned, sort of like 500 soldiers all waiting to be set loose into the battle of words.

There are other “new” things that I particularly like. I like the factory smell of a new car. I like the particularly smooth, clean shave of a brand new blade—although in my dotage I’ve switched to an electric razor that never gives me that smooth-shaved result of a blade.

I like the large, unused capacity of a new computer storage drive. I like the crisp lines of a freshly ironed shirt. I enjoy the energizing aroma from a newly mowed lawn.

There is something very hopeful, encouraging, even thrilling, about the newness of things. This is all the more so true of new beginnings for people. That’s why the words of the Apostle Paul, captured in his second letter to the Christians gathered at Corinth, seems to hold such promise.

Paul is writing about the awakening that happens within a person when the Holy Spirit reveals to that one what God has done for him or her through the shed blood of His one and only Son, Jesus. What Titus 3:5-6 calls “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

This new day, new world, new life experience fairly jumps off the page, as recorded in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

As we begin this new day, let’s remember that in Christ the old is gone the new has arrived. Jesus has cleansed us from our sin. He has washed us in His blood. He has made us thoroughly clean, within and without.

He presents us to His Father as a totally new person—one whom God has chosen to belong to Himself long before the world began. We can truly celebrate our newness in Christ. And, that’s a very, very good thing.

 

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