The Need for a New Beginning
This world is not my home
I’m just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me
From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore.
Albert E. Brumley penned this beautiful hymn in 1965. He recognized the longing of the heart to be with our Savior forever. This is the hope of the Saints. Our Creator God also renews and restores the fallen and rebellious heart. Hebrews 11 recounts for us the cloud of witnesses that have gone before us that clung to the sure and certain hope of a new home. Hebrews 11:13-16 says,
“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”
God has revealed His power to restore from the very beginning. Sin came into the world through the first man, Adam. God immediately set in motion His plan to redeem man through the second Adam, Jesus, the Savior of the world. Following Adam’s sin, man continued to increase in corruption.
Genesis 6:5; 11-12 explains that God saw that the wickedness of man was great and that the earth was filled with violence. However, Genesis 6:8 says, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Therefore, God directed Noah to build an ark and to preach repentance.
We were in desperate need of a new beginning and God provided it. God provided a way to a new beginning through the ark. Jesus used the flood account as an example for His return (Matthew 24:36-29). Peter used the flood account as an example for salvation and baptism (1 Peter 3:18-22).
God continues His work to redeem and provide a new beginning. I pray that the start of 2017 reminds you that God makes all things new (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Praiseallujiah!
Jon
