| “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” |
| —1 Peter 1:3a |
In the early days of personal computers, I purchased a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. This unit used a television screen as a monitor through an rf modulator operating on a TV channel. Storage consisted as an interface to a cassette tape recorder. It came equipped with a BASIC language interpreter. It was the first consumer-grade computer with a 16-bit processor.
One of the first things I learned about computing with this unit was that, when everything went wrong, I could unplug the unit and reset it to normal operating condition. By cutting the power, I effectively pushed a non-existent reset button to bring the unit back from wherever it had gone astray.
Sometimes, especially when we’ve really messed up and found ourselves caught in the entanglement of sin, we may wish that we had a “reset button” to bring our lives back into normal operating condition. Fortunately, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, has already pushed that “reset button” when he died on the cross, bearing the penalty for all our sins.
The Apostle Peter understood that this spiritual “reset button” existed in the form of an entire new life brought to us by Jesus. Notice these words found in 1 Peter 1:3:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
We can truly rejoice when we accept the reality that God has given us a new life in Christ. The ultimate spiritual “reset button” has been pushed by Jesus in our behalf. All of our sins have been erased. We have a totally new beginning. That is more than enough reason to start this new day with a smile on our faces and a song in our hearts.
Based on a blog originally posted on Friday, January 6, 2017
