The God Who Restores

.BY PR EVANGELINE CHEONG

A TV show that my family likes to watch together is Car S.O.S, where two car mechanics go around the British countryside to pick up cars previously loved but now broken and sitting in a shed while rusty, dusty and missing a few (actually many) parts. They secretly tow it out and restore it to its former glory, and bring it back to surprise its owner. In a time where we are more used to throwing out broken things than fixing them, such programs of car restoration can bring joy to someone who has lost hope of driving that classic car ever again.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, 

the new creation has come: 

The old has gone, the new is here! 

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17-18a (NIV)

Yet I can attest that there is more joy to see a person come to the God who restores all things, the One who is making all  things new! As God restores the sinner to a renewed relationship with Himself through Jesus Christ, and puts His Holy Spirit within His child, we see the restoration process takes effect in this person’s heart, mind and life: Soured relationships in families start to mend, the need to burst out in anger reduces, fears no longer constantly rule, addictions lose their allure, the love of money gives way to the love of God and His people. God’s restoration process becomes more than mere church attendance or ministry involvement: it changes lives, it restores families and communities.

However, it is easy to just leave the internal soul to rust even as we put on new external habits of being a Christian. How often do I resist God’s restoration process: to hold on to the sins that He convicts me of, to wrestle with God concerning the idols that entrap me, to be tempted to treat others with hatred when all I received from God is love. We all can resist God’s overhaul of all that is near and dear to our hearts even when it is all rusted and broken.

Are we satisfied with merely a new coat of paint and veneer of church attendance and busyness in ministry when the reality of our life at home, school or work is that there is no newness or transformation in us? Or shall we submit our brokenness to God’s process of restoration and ask Him for new hearts and minds to live out this new life He has given in Christ Jesus?