All Things Are Become New
Dramatic religious photo illustration of Good Friday and Easter Sunday Morning reflecting a prayerful moment of silence with a silhoutted person bowing his head, a warm sunrise rises over a foggy lake, and three crosses on a hill reflected in the water as well.
The King James Version of 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any (person) be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
This has always been one of my favorite passages.
What a fantastic promise to cling to, what a tremendous experience to have.
I remember the crisis of my youth as if it happened yesterday.
My heart and mind were filled with despair, and my soul was full of darkness.
I was suffering so great a depression that I even contemplated taking my own life.
I had a dream in which I passed from an old room filled with broken furniture and cobwebs to a new place, a garden in springtime with all the flowers in bloom under a clear, cool blue sky.
I thought the dream depicted the afterlife, and I saw it as confirmation of suicide.
But I had promised God I would give Him a week to reveal Himself.
That Friday night, I accompanied my Taekwondo instructor to a youth meeting on his invitation.
The meeting was held in a tiny cinder block building on the church grounds of Joppa Baptist.
I encountered God that night.
It wasn’t so much what the teacher spoke on.
I can’t recall all these years later the content of the message.
It wasn’t that anyone asked me to receive Jesus because no one did.
I encountered God’s presence among His people, and that encounter entirely transformed my life.
The human soul cannot come into contact with God and walk away the same person.
God is transformative by His very nature.
When I went home that evening, I knew what my dream meant.
It wasn’t any confirmation of death.
Instead, it was a foreshadowing of a new life in Christ, a new life that began on that Friday night in 1974.
If you are tired of your old life, if your heart longs for joy and happiness, if you too would like to be made new, give Jesus a chance and “behold, all things are become new.”
Much love,
David Dellman
