New and Improved

Madison Avenue discovered long ago that a good way to sell a product is to add the words “new and improved.” The only thing that may be new and improved is the box, but we believe the product is better. There is something in us that loves the newest and the latest.

But everything that is new soon becomes old. We purchase a new car, but it gets dented. We get a new gadget, but it breaks the day after the warranty expires. We buy new toys for our children, but they run out of batteries.

So we say, “If I just get a new wardrobe . . . if I get a new haircut . . . if I change my friends . . . if I change my house . . . if I change my career . . . that will make everything better.” It may make things a little bit different, but it won’t make them better. It all will come down to the same old problems, because it is still the same old you inside. New surroundings or a new appearance aren’t going to change us. We have to change.

Here is what God says we need to do. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

God is the true Giver of new things. He gives us things that will last forever. When we come to Him through a new birth by faith in Christ, He gives us a new nature, a new heart, a new life, a new hope, and a new purpose. He takes ordinary people and makes them extraordinary.