2 Peter 1:5-11 (The Message)
5 So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, 6 alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, 7 warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. 8 With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. 9 Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books. 10 So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, 11 the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

This is another great passage of scripture that I read this morning. I highlighted the words above because they have a particular meaning to me today. To explain, I have to tell you that our family has just recently moved into a beautiful new home that we built on our existing property. Formerly, we had been living in an 85 year old farmhouse that was also on this property. County regulations would not permit us to keep both homes on the property, so we were required to demolish the old home almost immediately after moving into the new. This has been quite difficult for me to handle. The old house was our family's home for 7 years. I believe God is using this process to teach me something. Even early in the conception of our new home we began calling it God's house. It is only through Him that its building has been possible. There is a stark contrast between this new lovely home and our old farmhouse. The old one had received lttle TLC through the years and the ravages of time were obvious. Add to this the fact that we had quite outgrown the place and you have decreped, cluttered chaos. We often said that we felt like we were living in scallor. I was even embarrassed to invite anyone into my home. The new home, in contrast, is spacious and we are taking much care not to bring anything junky into it and not to clutter it up in any way. I am proud to welcome others into it.

God has shown me that this contrast is like our lives. There is the scallor that we live in before we turn to God, and there is the peace and beauty of our new lives in Christ. A key element of our new lives in Christ is that we completely turn away from our old life. We cannot hang onto it.

Yesterday, as I walked through our old home for the very last time before it was demolished, I cried. Part of me wanted desparately to hang onto it. That home in a way had become a part of me because of the memories with my family created there. I knew in my mind that tearing it down was the right thing to do. I knew that I had no use for that old house anymore and it was merely an eyesore and a blemish on our property, but a part of my heart did NOT want to give it up. Isn't it the same with our lives? Living for Christ brings about change in our lives. We step forward into new behaviours as He teaches us. We cannot form new habits, though, if we continue to live in our old ways.



Matthew 9:16-17 says,
"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."