Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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Extreme Makeover: Life Edition
Probably most of us are familiar with the Emmy award-winning ABC reality tv series known as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The show began several years ago and is part of a whole genre of extremely popular shows and now even entire networks that are all about home renovation. The basic story line of the Extreme Makeover series, hosted by Ty Pennington, is that they come to a family that has suffered some sort of trauma or distress and is in need of hope, often related to the house that they are living in, and the family is sent away on a vacation. Over the next seven days, the crew first demolishes their old house and then, with lots of donated material and a massive volunteer labor force, builds a new house that is way beyond what their old one was.
I believe that there is a remarkable parallel to what happens or needs to happen in all of our lives. We find ourselves living in a place that is not at all adequate or wonderful. We are in desperate need of hope. And along comes someone who introduces us to Jesus and tells us of what he can do in and for our lives. However, there is no vacation to go on and there is no team of designers that ask us how we want to be remade, there is just Jesus who loves us, created us, and knows what is best for us. But, he is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ever ask or imagine according to his power that is at work in us (Ephesians 3:20). And he comes into our lives and we experience an Extreme Makeover: Life Edition. He gets rid of the old and makes things new.
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I think that there is a reason for sending the family away on a vacation that goes even beyond the fact that they need a rest. It is that as bad as our present situation is, most of us would resist it's destruction. On the tv show, the family watches on video broadcast from a long ways away, as their old house is demolished. In real life, we are right there while Jesus is getting rid of the old. I don't know about you, and I don't even know why I do it, but I want to hang on to the old familiar stuff that has put me in the situation in which I find myself. I want Jesus to somehow be able to build a lot of this old stuff into the new. And God has to allow us to hang on to all of that old stuff if we choose to. At the same time, he keeps coming back and suggesting that we trade it for the new thing that he longs to give to us. Why do I hang on to that old stuff? It is so out of place in the new house.
Do we really want to be in Christ? Or do we just want him as a fresh coat of paint or a new piece of furniture. He wants to make of you and me an entirely new creation, recreated in his image for his glory and honor. And he wants to see all of the old man gone so that you and I can be new people in him! He wants us to let go of all of those old attitudes and behaviors and thoughts and trust him. What do you think, will he, the Creator of each of us and the entire universe, do a better job than if I try to do it myself?
Yes, there will be some destruction. Some demolition. Some things that were familiar and comfortable will be gone. The word of the Lord to Jeremiah was that God would come "to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow" (Jeremiah 1:10). But that is not the end of the story. It is just that the ground of our lives has to be cleared so that God can come along "to build and to plant." A new thing. A new life. New attitudes — his attitudes. New thinking — his thoughts. New actions — what he is doing.
Will it be painful? Probably. Will the end result be better? No question about it. A new creation. Fresh. Glorious. Alive.
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