New Creation

On the TV series American Pickers, a collector of old motorcycles told the host, “They're not worth anything if they're restored.” It occurs to me that many believers confuse being reborn with being restored. For instance, when we come to Jesus we want to be cleaned-up, polished and restored to our former selves. I suppose it’s because, generally speaking, we like ourselves and we’d prefer being refurbished rather than recreated. Paul said, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:17-19 NIV).