All Things Have Become New

Little children love mud...they love to play in it, touch it, sit in it and will go out of their way to walk in a mud puddle if they see one at a distance. Mud actually stains clothing. If a child gets mud on them it’s almost guaranteed Mum will have to scrub for ages to clean the clothes. It doesn’t matter how much the clothing gets scrubbed and put back on a child nice and clean the child will still head for a mud puddle the next time they see one.
We can be like that child. The things of this world that separate us from Jesus can seem as a attractive to us as a mud puddle is to a child. We are drawn to those things. We like them, we want to enjoy them. We can turn to Jesus and ask forgiveness and He will wash us all clean so that we are sparkling white but we will still want to head back to the mud puddles of life if we don’t allow God to do something more in our hearts.

The Bible even talks about this in 2 Peter 2:22...using the example of a pig..."A pig that is washed goes back to wallow in the mud."
God wants to do something even bigger in our lives than forgiveness. He wants to change us on the inside and give us a new heart...new thoughts...new desires. No matter how much a child is told not to go into a mud puddle or how many times we wash them up their heart’s are still the same. They still desire the mud. Without a change of heart we too will still desire the things that will separate us from God.

Ps 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Ps 51:7 wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Eze 36:25,26 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh
2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Today let us seek God not just for forgiveness but for new hearts, new thoughts and new desires.