All Things New
Rob Sellitto Download: Audio
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Scripture Revelation 21:1-5
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) is an organization committed to responding to the brokenness of our world through God’s love. For almost 150 years, Canadian Baptists (including Walmer) have worked together to join God in his mission of hope and transformation around the world. At some point many years ago, CBM was born to provide operational and organizational support and leadership to this work. It’s a phenomenal organization. If you have some time, it’s worth wandering around their website. Even though we don’t officially list CBM as one of our partners in mission, they are our partner because we are part of CBOQ (Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec).
I’m telling you all of this because on Sunday we’re going to be hearing from some people connected to CBM. In particular, we’re going to be hearing a bit from André Sibomana, who is CBM’s Africa Team Leader, currently living and working in Rwanda. He’s going to share with us about a number of partnerships that have given and continue to give him hope in his region. We’re also going to hear from Tim and Kallie Hutton, who serve in Bolivia, and who will share some brief stories of hope from their region. We’ll be invited to consider God’s promise from Revelation 21:5, in which he says, “See, I am making all things new.” And we’ll be invited to reflect on Isaiah 43:18 – 19, which reads,
Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?
God is all about doing and creating new things. He takes the old and makes it young again. He takes the dead and makes it live again. I’m astonished that he doesn’t just throw out the old and the broken and the cluttered, but he makes it new. That’s where my hope lies as I step into a new year. I step into it cluttered and burdened and stained and scarred by the years before. But none of that matters to God. God is making all things, including me – including you – new. And he doesn’t have to throw out the old to do it. How extraordinary is that?
As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps reflect on how or in what ways you would like to see God make you new. Perhaps spend some time asking God to do that work and asking God to reveal where he has and is already doing that work. Can you believe his promise for you: “See, I am making all things new”?