New

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

We like new. We like new cars, new clothes, and new homes, and new medical discoveries. We place our hopes in each New Year. We like adventure that takes us to new places. When Christopher Columbus saw the Americas for the first time he called them the “New World.” Are these things genuinely new or just new to us? King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, was the wisest man who ever lived and he concluded through worldly living, that there is nothing new under the sun.

The good news is that all things are made new in the Son.

“New” in the New Testament means fresh and unlike anything else in quality or nature.

We have a new covenant (Heb. 9:15).

We have a new commandment (John13:34).

We are a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

We have a new self, created to be like God (Eph. 4:24).

We will have a new heaven and a new earth. (Rev. 21:1)

We will have a new song to sing (Rev. 5:9).

God is writing a new story in each of our lives. When my husband, Cal, faced surgery to remove cancer a few months ago, he and his family feared the outcome might be the same as that of his former wife. She underwent the same procedure several years ago. Tragically she died within days, from unexpected complications.

I sympathized with their fears, yet God’s peace filled me and He gave me words to share in a card of encouragement to Cal. God impressed on my heart that He was going to do a new thing (Isaiah 43:19) through my husband’s experience. He did. Cal regained his health and is cancer free!

Lord, may we keep our eyes fixed on You. Your ways are higher than anything “under the sun”. You alone make all things new.

Karen Sims