People are always trying to change themselves for the better. They go on crash diets, have plastic surgery, get new hairdos, or buy new clothes. Americans spend $50 million a year on subliminal message tapes designed to help them do everything from improving their self-image to stopping smoking.
Compared with the renovation God has planned for us, our own efforts to improve ourselves are trivial.
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
The Motivation:
When my husband and I had a restaurant, there was an employee whom we really loved - but we had to keep firing him for missing work or showing up totally drunk. When we fired him for the 5th time, Mike sat down on the front steps of the restaurant with him and shared Jesus (again). He told Billy how much we love him and how much Jesus loves him. But we couldn't have him around other employees or the customers in that condition. Mike's heart broke as he watched Billy leave - walking home alone in the dark.
About two years later, Billy called and said, "Do you remember me?" Are you kidding? Of course! We had been wondering where he was. Billy said he was in a half-way house in Houston - had just gotten out of prison for drug and alcohol abuse. He said he met Jesus in prison and wanted to know if we would hire him again. I told him when he was finished with the program to come see us. Now, you and I know some prison conversions aren't real and there is no real fruit - so I wondered if Billy just said what he thought we wanted to hear.
About six months later, Billy walked into the restaurant. Mike sat down with him and visited, and decided to offer him a job. But the only job we had available was for a waiter. Oh, boy. No hiding him in the kitchen this time. We contacted DETCOG (Deep East Texas Council of Government), and told them we wanted to offer Billy a job, that we only had a waiter position open, but his teeth were in too bad of a condition to have him serving food to our guests. The agency volunteered to pay for fixing his teeth if we would hire him.
Billy began going to the dentist every week, and working at the restaurant. He would rush to the front door to greet our guests as they came in and help them find a table. He was always smiling, always up, always sober. By this time, our customers were saying, "Is that Billy? I hardly recognize him!" I would just smile and say, "Yes, that is Billy. He's a new creation in Christ now."
The enemy will lie to you, and I imagine Billy believed many of the lies in this video when he was at his lowest point.
After Billy became a new creation in Christ, Satan's lies could no longer discourage him or turn him away from the straight and narrow path.
Prayer for Restoration
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)
