More Than A Second Coat

My family and I have lived in our home for nearly thirteen years.  As I completed painting the daylight basement a couple months ago, I commented to my wife that it dawned on me that, save the interior of one closet and the garage, we have painted every interior wall as well as the entire outside of the house.  Last week, my church office was painted.  (I still smell it just a bit.)

One of the beauties of paint is that it makes old things look new.  Dull transforms to fresh.  Fading gives way to brightening.  All things painted are made new, or - more accurately - all things appear new.  Appearances aren't everything.  Unless the paint is the first coat on newly-hung sheetrock, it covers other paints and most likely some stains and putty-filled nail holes and cracks (earthquake-caused, perhaps).  Paint covers pasts; it does not truly clean them.  

Thankfully the same is not true when it comes to the blood of Jesus that fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah. 

---

Isaiah 1:18 (NIV)
“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
    says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool."

Jesus' blood washes rather than settling with a good cover-up.  He makes His followers new.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19a (NIV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

Thanks be to Jesus for such a gift!

#ordinarylives